ABSTRACT
A method was developed to elucidate the structures of sulfated oligosaccharides through establishment of an effective reversed phase ion pair ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization time of flight mass spectrometry( RPIP-UPLC-ESI-TOF-MS). Heptylamine (20 mmol/L,pH4) has been selected as the ion-pairing agent.κ-Carrageenan oligosaccharides have been separated on BEH C_(18) column using MeOH/H_2O with 25% heptylammonium formate as eluent in linear gradient mode. Mass spectra were obtained by ESI-Q-TOF-MS in both positive and negative modes. κ-Carrageenan oligosaccharides were well separated up to pentatetrasaccharide,and ESIMS analysis for κ-carrageenan oligosaccharides up to hepta-cosasccharide. The results showed that all acid hydrolyzed κ-carrageenan oligosaccharides were odd sugars,which was further confirmed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis ( PAGE). The characteristic fragmentation pattern of ion-pair oligosaccharides in mass spectra can be applied for rapid structure identification.