Coupling Isotopic Shifts with Collision Cross-Section Measurements for Carbohydrate Characterization in High-Resolution Ion Mobility Separations

Herein, we introduce a two-dimensional strategy to better characterize carbohydrate isomers. In a single experiment, we can derive cyclic ion mobility-mass spectrometry (cIMS-MS)-based collision cross-section (CCS) values in conjunction with measuring isotopic shifts through the relative arrival times of light and heavy isotopologues. These isotopic shifts were introduced by permethylating carbohydrates with either light, CH3, or heavy, CD3, labels at every available hydroxyl group to generate a light/heavy pair of isotopologues for every individual species analyzed. We observed that our calculated CCS values, which were exclusively measured for the light isotopologues, were orthogonal to our measured isotopic shifts (i.e., relative arrival time values between heavy and light permethylated isotopologues). Our permethylation-induced isotopic shifts scaled well with increasing molecular weight, up to ∼m/z 1300, expanding the analysis of isotopic shifts to molecules 3–4 times as large as those previously studied. Our presented use of coupling CCS values with the measurement of isotopic shifts in a single cIMS-MS experiment is a proof-of-concept demonstration that our two-dimensional approach can improve the characterization of challenging isomeric carbohydrates. We envision that our presented 2D approach will have broad utility for varying molecular classes as well as being amenable to many forms of derivatization.