Mass spectrometric detection of multiple extended series of neutral highly fucosylated N-acetyllactosamine oligosaccharides in human milk

Complex mixtures of high-molecular weight fractions of pooled neutral human milk oligosaccharides (obtained via gel permeation chromatography) have been investigated. The subfractions were each permethylated and analyzed by high-resolution mass spectrometry, using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)–Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometry, in order to investigate their oligosaccharide compositions. The obtained spectra reveal that human milk contains more complex neutral oligosaccharides than have been described previously; the data show that these oligosaccharides can be highly fucosylated, and that their poly-N-acetyllactosamine cores are substituted with up to 10 fucose residues on an oligosaccharide that has 7-N-acetyllactosamine units. This is the first report of the existence in human milk of this large range of highly fucosylated oligosaccharides which possess novel, potentially immunologically active structures.