Desorption mass spectrometry of glycosphingolipids.

Desorption mass spectrometry has become an important tool for sequencing and mapping of glycosphingolipids of natural, synthetic, or semi-synthetic origin. The appropriate combination of different desorption mass spectrometric techniques with other spectroscopic, enzymatic, chemical, and/or immunological methods represents the most direct and efficient way to establish frequent, yet unknown, molecular structure-function relationships.