Development of a rapid analytical system for glycans using a multistage tandem mass spectral database: — Toward an era where everyone can analyze glycan structure without specialist knowledge —@@@―誰でも簡単に糖鎖を調べることができる時代へ―

−196− Synthesiology English edition Vol.8 No.4 pp.196-210 (Mar. 2016) The structural analysis of glycans is difficult. The main reason is because, unlike the nucleic acids and proteins for which the primary structure can be known if the sequence is read, there are branch structures, positional isomerisms, stereoisomerisms, and others, and simple sequence decoding is not sufficient to know the glycan structure (Fig. 1). This means that the heart of glycan analysis is how to identify the isomers. The difficulty of glycan structure analysis is described in Synthesiology Volume 7 Issue 2 (2014) “Development of lectin microarray, an advanced system for glycan profiling.” The glycan structure analysis was a work undertaken by specialists with skilled craftsmanship, and this was a major bottleneck in glycan research. If glycan structure analysis can be conducted easily by anyone, it is expected that the range of glycan research will widen and the clarification of glycan functions that still remain mysterious and their application will rapidly progress. In the SG Project, two approaches were taken for the glycan structure analysis. One is the glycan profiling method where the lectin array, in which various types of proteins (lectin) that can identify the partial glycan structure, is arranged on the slide glass. This method yielded results in the search for disease biomarkers and stem cell markers. The search for markers demands sensitivity rather than precision, and the highly sensitive lectin microarray that can be prepared easily is utilized effectively. On the other hand, if one wanted to clarify the marker itself at a molecular level or check the content of the multiple glycan types, glycan analysis by mass spectrometry described in this paper is useful. The two methods mutually supplement each other’s weaknesses. In this paper, we