Complementary UV-MALDI-TOF and ESI-TOF Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Oligosaccharides

HIROSHI NONAMI; ERRA BALSELLS, ROSA

Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japon.

Conferencia; International Conference on Research Highlights and Vanguard Technology on Environmental Engineering in Agricultural Systems, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan,; 2005

Proceedings of the Joint Meeting on Environmental Engineering in Agriculture 2005, PS?72, pag. 662. S1, ISSN 1880-2087

UV-MALDI- and ESI-MS are a valuable techniques for the determination of high molecular mass when they are used with proteins while for carbohydrates still the techniques faces serious experimental problems. This limitation is probably related, at least in part, to the structural complexity and to the molecular interactions often found in the oligosaccharide moieties of these biopolymers. Furthermore, the isolated oligosaccharides include in its structure salts naturally present in cells, which can modify the results of the MS analysis. Few UV-MALDI- abd ESI-MS analysis of polysaccharides belonging to the neutral, anionic and basic families have been reported tacking into account this salt effect although they are naturally present in plant and animal tissues, being their isolation and characterization quite essential. In order to achieve this goal with natural neutral oligosaccharides present in cells, in the present project we designed comparative UV-MALDI- and ESI-MS experiments conducted on different instruments adding extra amount of dopping Na and Ca.  As analytes,  xylans present in the intercellular medium or in the cell walls of algae have been isolated and prepared for MS analysis. The Na, K, Ca and Mg concentration in the native xylan studied have been determined by atomic absorcion spectroscopy.