A Tandem mass spectrometry strategy for validating the synthesis of glycoconjugate vaccines

Abstract

In principle, various types of vaccines that are commercially used as “antibacterial or anticancer vaccines” can be produced using various types of antigenic carbohydrate haptens containing relevant epitopes. This review highlights the strategies used for the characterization of such glycoconjugate vaccines as well as a complete mass spectrometry-based strategy for validating their synthesis. The location of the covalently linked antigenic saccharide haptens on the protein carrier is usually termed as “glycation sites” and these are determined using tandem mass spectrometry. The ratio of carbohydrate hapten: BSA is determined by availing of the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-TOF-MS analyses of the glycoconjugates. The outcome of our different studies was that all the glycated residues were located mainly near the outer surface of the carrier protein.