Evaporative fluorophore labeling of carbohydrates via reductive amination

As analytical glycomics became to prominence, newer and more efficient sample preparation methods are being developed. Albeit, numerous reductive amination based carbohydrate labeling protocols have been reported in the literature, the preferred way to conduct the reaction is in closed vials. Here we report on a novel evaporative labeling protocol with the great advantage of continuously concentrating the reagents during the tagging reaction, therefore accommodating to reach the optimal reagent concentrations for a wide range of glycan structures in a complex mixture. The optimized conditions of the evaporative labeling process minimized sialylation loss, otherwise representing a major issue in reductive amination based carbohydrate tagging. In addition, complete and uniform dispersion of dry samples was obtained by supplementing the low volume labeling mixtures (several microliters) with the addition of extra solvent (e.g., THF). Evaporative labeling is an automation-friendly glycan labeling method, suitable for standard open 96 well plate format operation