Structural and numerical variations of the carbohydrate moiety of immunoglobulin G.

Oligosaccharide patterns obtained from human IgG by hydrazinolysis were fairly constant from sample to sample. In contrast, a variety of oligosaccharide patterns were obtained from IgG myeloma proteins. Structural analysis of each oligosaccharide by sequential exoglycosidase digestion and methylation studied indicated that the different patterns of IgG myeloma proteins are produced by different degrees of incompleteness of the formation of a single sugar chain: Sia alpha 2 leads to Gal beta 1 leads to 4GlcNAc beta 1 leads to 2 Man alpha 1 leads to 6(Sia alpha 2 leads to Gal beta 1 leads to 4GlcNAc beta 1 leads to Man alpha 1 leads to 3)(GlcNAc beta 1 leads to 4)Man beta 1 leads to 4GlcNAc beta 1 leads to 4(Fuc alpha 1 leads to 6)GlcNAcOT.