A novel mass spectrometric procedure to rapidly determine the position of O-acylated residues in the sequence of naturally occurring oligosaccharides.

A novel procedure is described for the assignment of the position of O-acylated residues in the sequence of oligosaccharides. The procedure is both rapid and sensitive and complements existing carbohydrate techniques. The procedure involves the use of derivatisation, using conditions under which naturally occurring O-acyl groups are stable, and subsequent fast atom bombardment mass spectrometric analysis of the derivatised product. The derivatisation enhances and directs fragmentation providing unambiguous sequence data. The protocol described is shown to be applicable to acetyl groups and to more complex acyl groups such as long chain fatty acids.