Ion mobility Mass Spectrometry for Glycomics: Challenges and Opportunities When Met with Artificial Intelligence

Glycans possess complex and unique stereochemical features, endowing them with distinguishing functions. An urgent need to develop a glycan sequencing method to elucidate the determine stereo diversity of glycan precisely. A currently promising approach is ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM -MS), which offers an additional dimension separation and collision cross section (CCS) value for the unambiguous identification of glycan isomers. This review highlights the evolution of IM -MS technologies to support comprehensive glycan analysis. Furthermore, the strategy and breakthroughs of glycan structure analysis based on IM -MS are discussed, and the CCS values of different glycans are summarized from relevant reports. We also envision the future of glycomics, including the development of glycan IM -MS library and the integration with artificial intelligence (AI) to truly unleash the capabilities of glycoscience. This review not only aims to provide a deeper understanding of IM -MS on glycan research but also discuss the road toward glycomics AI era.