Advancing Effective Glycan Analysis

Researchers are paying increasing attention to a critically important class of biomolecules: glycans. Although less studied than other major building blocks of life - proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids - complex and diverse glycans are essential to life and are omnipresent in organisms from archaea to humans [1]. Recent advances in glycoscience have shone new light on glycans and their role as key metabolic, structural, and physical components in biological structures. The potential of glycoengineering has been established, perhaps most significantly, in therapeutic antibody development.This article outlines examples of the role glycans play clinically, the challenges of glycan analysis, summarises the tools available to elucidate their intricate structures, and presents data comparing traditional LC-MS workflows with the emerging technique of high-resolution ion mobility (HRIM) spectroscopy.