Browsing by Subject "oligosakkaridi"

The literature review deals with the structure of arabinoxylan and the principles of mass spectrometric methods used in analyzing them. The fragmentation of carbohydrate structures, the structural information gained from it, and naming of the resulting neutral fragments and product ions was also discussed. The aim of the experimental work was to analyze linear xylo-oligosaccharides and branched or linear arabinoxylans with known structures using tandem mass spectrometry. Of the arabinoxylo-oligosaccharides analyzed, three were branched while the others had an arabinose substituent at terminal xylose. The oligosaccharides were analyzed as underivatized, alditols, and methylated alditols with both positive and negative ionization. Derivatization was done in order to produce different product ions and to gain information about the effect of reduction and methylation on fragmentation mechanisms. Underivatized oligosaccharides provided most information with negative mode ionization. Low intensity of C-type fragment ions prevented their isolation in MS3-step when reduced oligosaccharides were analyzed. Methylation changed the weights of fragmentation products, which made it possible to detect branching in the oligosaccharide structure. Methylation also changed the fragmentation mechanism which caused differences in the product ion spectra compared to underivatized oligosaccharides. B-ions were fragmented to gain information about linkage positions when analyzing methylated alditols. The mechanism of B-ion fragmentation differs from that of C-ions, and produced information rich neutral fragments. However, low signal intensity made branch site analysis difficult, especially when arabinose substituent was located at terminal xylose.