ABSTRACT
Gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of carbohydrates has been performed employing several types of derivatives. The trimethylsilyl (TMS) ethers of carbohydrates have been widely used in the past because of their ease of formation and their relatively high volatility. The increased volatility is particularly important for the analysis of oligosaccharides. TMS derivatives of carbohydrates have several disadvantages. Acetylated derivatives are generally employed for monosaccharides only, since derivatives of oligosaccharides are not sufficiently volatile for analysis by gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) with polar packings. The Per-O-Acetylated Aldononitrile (PAAN) derivatives have also been used by Varma and co-workers to identify arabinose in brain hyaluronic acid. PAAN derivatives have the presence of the nitrile to distinguish the (former) reducing end of the sugar in mass spectrometry (MS).
