Perspective on the Challenges of Carbohydrate Sequencing and it’s solutions

Carbohydrates possess a variety of distinct features with stereochemistry playing a particularly important role in distinguishing their structure and function. The stereochemical complexity of carbohydrates makes sequencing polysaccharides extremely difficult – a key CarboMet initiative to facilitate development in this area. Advances in emerging technology and techniques have made it possible to develop an analytical platform to accurately map complex carbohydrate structures using NMR and MS-hybridized technologies including ion mobility spectrometry and IR spectroscopy. This perspective was written by leading scientists in Europe in glycoscience and analytical chemistry.