A Systematic Investigation of CID Q-TOF-MS/MS Collision Energies to Improve N- and O-glycopeptide Identification by LC-MS/MS

Protein glycosylation is a dynamically regulated, non-template dependent process influenced by various factors such as age, sex, cell and tissue type as well as health status. This makes glycoproteins prime biomarker targets. In order to investigate the role individual glycoproteins play in the onset and progression of numerous diseases reliable and robust analytical approaches are crucial for determination of glycan composition in a protein/peptide specific manner. Mass spectrometry has developed as one of the most powerful tools for the sensitive identification and structure elucidation of glycopeptides. However, the optimal collision energy conditions required to obtain a maximum of information on both, the glycan as well as the peptide moiety have to date rarely been systematically investigated.