Chapter 7: Use of Ion Mobility for the Structural Identification of Glycans

This chapter describes the uses of ion mobility (IM) for the structural identification of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates. Topics covered are instrumentation, use of ion mobility for extracting glycan ions from mixtures, resolution of isomers, kinetic studies and applications. Recently introduced high-resolution instruments and their ability to separate carbohydrates by shape have revealed that many of these compounds exist in multiple forms (anomers, conformers, etc.) in the vapour phase, thus complicating the usefulness of the technique for isomer separation. Nevertheless, ion mobility has introduced another dimension to carbohydrate analysis, mainly by its ability to separate many glycan ions from complex mixtures and to provide cross-section measurements that can be used as an additional physical property to aid compound identification.