Quantitative Determination of Monosaccharides in Glycoproteins by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Highly Sensitive Fluorescence Detection

Abstract

For specific determination of monosaccharides with high sensitivity, glycoprotein acid hydrolysates were derivatized in a simple step with excess anthranilic acid (2-aminobenzoic acid) in the presence of sodium cyanoborohydride to give highly fluorescent stable derivatives. The monosaccharide derivatives were completely separated from the excess reagent and from each other by HPLC on a C-18 reversed-phase column using a 1-butylamine-phosphoric acid-tetrahydrofuran mobile phase. Reductive amination of the monosaccharides in the methanol-acetate-borate medium was complete within 20 min at 80°C. Derivatization of glucosamine with the anthranilic acid was accompanied by epimerization to mannosamine (>15%) in methanol-acetic acid reaction medium, but it was reduced to <3% in methanol-acetate-borate reaction medium. Fluorescence intensity of the hexosamines was greater than twice the intensity of the neutral monosaccharides. The fluorescent derivatives had excitation maxima at 230, 245, and 360 nm and an emission maximum at 425 nm. Fluorescence intensity at 230 nm excitation was about 10 times greater than that obtained with excitation at 360 nm for all the monosaccharides. Release and concomitant destruction of the monosaccharides during hydrolysis in 20% TFA at 100°C for 7-8 h resulted in 83-85% recovery of all the monosaccharides from glycoproteins. The monosaccharide compositions determined by this method were in excellent agreement with the expected values for a recombinant immunoglobulin and fetuin and were highly reproducible. Relative standard deviation for the composition determinations and precision was less than 3%. Because of the high sensitivity of this method (∼100 fmol using a analytical column), it is suitable for analyzing less than 1.0 μg of glycoprotein.