“…Many sulfated glycans are notoriously difficult to analyze and are prone to desulfation under MALDI conditions, a property that may explain why Araki et al (2002) did not observe any compounds other than the monomer in mixtures of a-amylase-derived oligomers from dextran sulfate, even though size-exclusion chromatography indicated the presence of oligomers with one to five residues. Ionpairing with basic peptides is a frequently used method for stabilizing these compounds for MALDI analysis (Biemann, 2002). Kreuger et al (2001) and several investigators (Kwan et al, 2001;Sturiale, Naggi, & Torri, 2001;Jemth et al, 2002;Guerrini et al, 2002) have used the method to study binding of fibroblast growth factors (FGF) to sulfated glycans.…”