Neutral O-linked oligosaccharides released from the salivary mucin MUC5B were separated and detected by negative ion LC-MS and LC-MS 2 . The resolution of the chromatography and the information obtained from collision induced dissociation of detected [M Ϫ H] Ϫ ions were usually sufficient to identify the sequence of individual oligosaccharides, illustrated by the fact that 50 different oligosaccharides ranging from disaccharides to nonasaccharides could be assigned from the sample. Fragmentation was shown to yield mostly reducing end sequence fragments (Z i and Y i ), enabling primary sequence assignment. Specific fragmentation pathways or patterns were also detected giving specific linkage information. The reducing end core (Gal/GlcNAc1-3GalNAcol or Gal/GlcNAc1-3(GlcNAc1-6)GalNAcol) could be deduced from the pronounced glycosidic C-3 cleavage and A i type cleavages of the reducing end GalNAcol, together with the non reducing end fragment from the loss of a single substituted GalNAcol. Substitution patterns on GlcNAc residues were also found, indicative for C-4 substitution ( 0,2 A i Ϫ H 2 O cleavage) and disubstitution of C-3 and C-4 (Z i /Z i cleavages). This kind of fragmentation can be used for assigning the mode of chain elongation (Gal1-3/ 4GlcNAc1-) and identification of Lewis type antigens like Lewis a/x and Lewis b/y on O-linked oligosaccharides. In essence, negative ion LC-MS 2 was able to generate extensive data for understanding the overall glycosylation pattern of a sample, especially when only a limited amount of material is available. I dentification and understanding of biological processes involving glycoconjugates is a scientific area of increasing interest. This increase in interest has worked hand in hand with the development of more sensitive and specific analytical techniques in this field. Mass spectrometry has been the detection and characterization tool most frequently used in recent years for analysis of glycoproteins, glycopeptides, glycolipids, or free oligosaccharides (some reviews in [1][2][3][4][5]). In principle, mass spectrometry suffers from the fact that the monomeric components (the monosaccharides) of oligosaccharide chains consist of isomeric building blocks, and that linkage configuration and position are difficult to obtain with the technique. Even so, researchers have applied mass spectrometric techniques to answer biological questions (some examples in [6 -9]).Characterization of released or free oligosaccharides by mass spectrometry using electrospray ionization in negative mode has recently been shown to give both sequence and linkage information [10,11]. Negative ion mode has been shown to be applicable to both negatively charged oligosaccharides and for neutral oligosaccharides [12][13][14], and offers high sensitivity of detection without requiring derivatization or adduct formation to aid ionization. Electrospray is also easily coupled to with high resolution liquid chromatography, an important factor in resolving the degeneracy of structural isomers found i...