Qualitative and quantitative comparison of N-glycans between pig endothelial and islet cells by high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry-based strategy.

N-glycan structures released from miniature pig endothelial and islet cells were determined by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF), negative ion electrospray ionization (ESI) MS/MS and normal-phase high performance liquid chromatography (NP-HPLC) combined with exoglycosidase digestion. Totally, the identified structures were 181 N-glycans including 129 sialylated and 18 alpha-galactosylated glycans from pig endothelial cells and 80 N-glycans including 41 sialylated and one alpha-galactosylated glycans from pig islet cells. The quantity of the alpha-galactosylated glycans from pig islet cells was certainly neglectable compared to pig endothelial cells. A number of NeuGc-terminated N-glycans (80 from pig endothelial cells and 13 from pig islet cells) are newly detected by our mass spectrometric strategies. The detailed structural information will be a matter of great interest in organ or cell xenotransplantation using alpha 1,3-galactosyltransferase gene-knockout (GalT-KO) pig. Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.