Biochips to study carbohydrate sequences within supramolecular assemblies by mass spectrometry – CarboCHIPS

Carbohydrates are highly important biomolecules in living organisms, with by far the huge molecular diversity. Their structural deciphering represents a challenging task reflecting a strategic priority of the Glycosciences. In most cases, their actions are achieved by a more or less specific protein recognition. These last ones are able to decode molecular information within a given carbohydrate sequence, by matching non-covalent interaction points. As carbohydrates synthesis is not directly encoded by the genome, the approaches to release, extract and purify them from biological media are tedious and amounts available are very limited, complicating their characterization. To overcome such bottlenecks, we aim to design carbohydrate and protein chips coupled to mass spectrometry, to elucidate interacting sequences within carbohydrate-ligand complexes.