Characterizing oligosaccharides using injected-ion mobility/mass spectrometry.

Injected-ion mobility/mass spectrometry techniques have been used to measure the reduced ion mobilities for negatively charged raffinose, melezitose and α-, β-, and γ-cyclodextrins formed by electrospray ionization. At low injection energies, the mass spectra are dominated by negatively charged (deprotonated) parent ions. At high injection energies, the mass spectra recorded for the cyclodextrins and raffinose display peaks that result from cross-ring cleavage of individual sugar units. Melezitose dissociates by cleavage of the glycosidic bonds. The ion mobility distributions can be used to distinguish between different isomeric forms of parent and fragment ions having the same mass-to-charge ratios.