Abstract

Proteoform diversity is greatly increased by glycosylation, the primary post-translational modification of proteins. Glycans, also known as oligosaccharides, are molecules that are essential to almost all living things. They can affect protein fold- ing and functionality, modulate cell-cell interactions, and support the proliferation of numerous diseases when they are found on cell surfaces or bound to proteins. A thorough understanding of their fundamental structure is necessary to gain insight into their characteristics and functions. But a major obstacle is the structural intricacy of glycans by design. The stereochemistry and regiochemistry of carbohydrates vary and are frequently branched. Because of its superior sensitivity and the abundance of frag- mentation information it can provide, mass spectrometry is now the method of choice for glycan and glycopeptide analysis. Dif- ferentiating between the structures of isomeric and isobaric glycopeptides, however, presents a difficulty for MS-based characterization. Ion mobility plus mass spectrometry (IM–MS) has become a very promising new method for glycan research in recent years. Recent developments in the growing discipline of glycosylation analysis utilizing IM-MS are outlined in this review, with a focus on the MS methodology and its ability to resolve isomeric glycans.