Tyrosine Derivatization and Preparative Purification of the Sialyl and Asialyl N-Linked Oligosaccharides from Porcine Fibrinogen

The N-linked oligosaccharides from porcine fibrinogen were purified following their release from glycopeptides using N-glycosidase F. In separate experiments, both sialyl and asialyl oligosaccharides were prepared from 5 g of fibrinogen. The reducing oligosaccharides were reacted with ammonium bicarbonate to form oligosaccharide-glycosylamines and then derivatized with tert-butoxycarbonyl-L-tyrosine N-hydroxysuccinimidyl ester. Tyrosinamide-oligosaccharides were purified first by gel filtration chromatography and then by reverse-phase HPLC and the products were characterized by proton NMR and fast atom bombardment-MS. Porcine fibrinogen was found to have predominantly a single asialyl biantennary oligosaccharide containing a fucose linked α1-6 to GlcNAc 1. The oligosaccharide possesses two sialylation patterns with a major form (70%) having a single N-acetyl neuraminic acid (NeuAc) residue linked α2-6 to galactose on only one antenna and a minor form (30%) possessing two NeuAc residues linked α2-6 to both terminal galactose residues. In addition to developing an isolation procedure and establishing the structures of porcine fibrinogen oligosaccharides, this study improves on the tyrosine derivatization technique as a general approach to isolate structurally diverse N-linked oligosaccharides from glycoproteins.