•Linkage-specific sialic acid permethylation (SSAP) shows high specificity to derivatize α2,3- and α2,6-sialic acids.•SSAP combined with MALDI-TOF MS is suitable to analyze both Neu5Ac- and Neu5Gc-glycan isomers.•SSAP characterizes by MS sensitivity enhancement (>10-fold) and distinct MS/MS spectra to the derivatized glycans.•SSAP is the simplest and speediest method for isomeric, sensitive and robust analysis of sialylated glycans.•SSAP applies to in-depth profiling of N-glycans derived from IgGs and human serum associated with rheumatoid arthritis.Protein glycosylation mediates a wide range of cellular processes, affecting development and disease in mammals. Deciphering the “glycocodes” requires rapid, sensitive and in-depth characterization of diverse glycan structures derived from biological samples. In this study, we described a two-step derivatization strategy termed linkage-specific sialic acid permethylation (SSAP) consisting of dimethylamination and permethylation for the improved profiling of glycosylation by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) time-of-fight (TOF) mass spectrometry (MS). High linkage-specificity (∼99%) of SSAP to both the two most common forms of sialic acid, N-acetylneuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) and N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), permitted direct discrimination of α2,3- and α2,6-linked sialic acids in MALDI-TOF MS. The enhanced intensity (>10-fold) and increased detection limit (>10-fold) of derivatized glycans were valued for sensitive glycomics. Moreover, the good compatibility and reaction efficiency of the two steps of SSAP allowed rapid sample preparation (<2 h), benefiting robust analysis of glycans in a high-throughput manner. The SSAP strategy was further applied to investigate the protein glycosylation of human serum associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). It was demonstrated that the relative abundances of individual glycans were different in RA negative and RA positive samples, and meanwhile the RA patient/control ratios of both α2,3- and α2,6-sialylated glycans tended to elevate accompanied with the increase of sialylation. Those findings of the glycosylation changes occurred in human serum protein may contribute to the diagnosis of RA. Herein, SSAP derivatization combined with MALDI-TOF MS exhibits unique advantages for glycomic analysis and shows potential in glycosylation profiling of therapeutic proteins and clinical glycan biomarker discovery.Download high-res image (152KB)Download full-size image

O-linked β-N-acetyl-glucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is an essential and ubiquitous post-translational modification present in nucleic and cytoplasmic proteins of multicellular eukaryotes. The metabolic chemical probes such as GlcNAc or GalNAc analogues bearing ketone or azide handles, in conjunction with bioorthogonal reactions, provide a powerful approach for detecting and identifying this modification. However, these chemical probes either enter multiple glycosylation pathways or have low labeling efficiency. Therefore, selective and potent probes are needed to assess this modification. We report here the development of a novel probe, 1,3,6-tri-O-acetyl-2-azidoacetamido-2,4-dideoxy-d-glucopyranose (Ac34dGlcNAz), that can be processed by the GalNAc salvage pathway and transferred by O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) to O-GlcNAc proteins. Due to the absence of a hydroxyl group at C4, this probe is less incorporated into α/β 4-GlcNAc or GalNAc containing glycoconjugates. Furthermore, the O-4dGlcNAz modification was resistant to the hydrolysis of O-GlcNAcase (OGA), which greatly enhanced the efficiency of incorporation for O-GlcNAcylation. Combined with a click reaction, Ac34dGlcNAz allowed the selective visualization of O-GlcNAc in cells and accurate identification of O-GlcNAc-modified proteins with LC-MS/MS. This probe represents a more potent and selective tool in tracking, capturing, and identifying O-GlcNAc-modified proteins in cells and cell lysates.

Protein O-GlcNAcylation has been shown to play an important role in a number of biological processes, including regulation of the cell cycle, DNA transcription and translation, signal transduction, and protein degradation. O-GlcNAcase (OGA) is responsible for the removal of O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) from serine or threonine residues, and thus plays a key role in O-GlcNAc metabolism. Potent OGA inhibitors are useful tools for studying the cellular processes of O-GlcNAc, and may be developed as drugs for the treatment neurodegenerative diseases. In this study, Cu(I)-catalyzed ‘Click’ cycloaddition reactions between glycosyl azides and alkynes were exploited to generate inhibitory candidates of OGA. Enzymatic kinetic screening revealed that compound 7 was a potent competitive inhibitor of human O-GlcNAcase (Ki = 185.6 μM). Molecular docking simulations of compound 7 into CpOGA (Clostridium perfringens OGA) suggested that strong π–π stacking interaction between the compound and W490 considerably contributed to improving the inhibitory activity.

O-GlcNAcase (OGA) is a family 84 glycoside hydrolase catalyzing the hydrolytic cleavage of O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) from serine and threonine residues of proteins. Thus far, three forms of OGA have been identified in humans. Here we optimized the expression of these isoforms in E. coli and characterized their kinetic properties. Using Geno 3D, we predicted that N-terminal amino acids 63–342 form the catalytic site for O-GlcNAc removal and characterized it. Large differences are observed in the Km value and catalytic efficiency (kcat/Km) for the three OGA variants, though all of them displayed O-GlcNAc hydrolase activity. The full-length OGA had the lowest Km value of 0.26 mM and the highest catalytic efficiency of 3.51·103. These results reveal that the N-terminal region (a.a. 1–350) of OGA contains the catalytic site for glycoside hydrolase and the C-terminal region of the coding sequence has the ability to stabilize the native three-dimensional structure and further affect substrate affinity.

•Solid-phase reductive amination using non-porous graphitized carbon as adsorbent exhibits high labeling efficiency.•Solid-phase strategy is simple, fast, and economical to prepare reductively aminated glycans.•Compared with in-solution reductive amination, solid-phase method enables a 20–30% increase in sample recovery.•Solid-phase reductive amination is applicable for isotopic labeling and compatible with permethylation.Reductive amination is an indispensable method for glycomic analysis, as it tremendously facilitates glycan characterization and quantification by coupling functional tags at the reducing ends of glycans. However, traditional in-solution derivatization based approach for the preparation of reductively aminated glycans is quite tedious and time-consuming. Here, a simpler and more efficient strategy termed solid-phase reductive amination was investigated. The general concept underlying this new approach is to streamline glycan extraction, derivatization, and purification on non-porous graphitized carbon sorbents. Neutral and sialylated standard glycans were utilized to test the feasibility of the solid-phase method. As results, almost complete labeling of those glycans with four common labels of aniline, 2-aminobenzamide (2-AB), 2-aminobenzoic acid (2-AA) and 2-amino-N-(2-aminoethyl)-benzamide (AEAB) was obtained, and negligible desialylation occurred during sample preparation. The labeled glycans derived from glycoproteins showed excellent reproducibility in high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) analysis. Direct comparisons based on fluorescent absorbance and relative quantification using isotopic labeling demonstrated that the solid-phase strategy enabled 20–30% increase in sample recovery. In short, the solid-phase strategy is simple, reproducible, efficient, and sensitive for glycan analysis. This method was also successfully applied for N-glycan profiling of HEK 293 cells with MALDI-TOF MS, showing its attractive application in the high-throughput analysis of mammalian glycome.