GlycoHunter: An Open-Source Software for the Detection and Relative Quantification of INLIGHT-Labeled N‑Linked Glycans

Glycans are responsible for many
biological activities; however,
their structures are incredibly diverse and complex, often rendering
the field of glycomics unsolvable by a single analytical technique.
The development of multiple chemical derivatization strategies and
bioinformatic software is responsible for some of the greatest analytical
gains in the field of glycomics. The INLIGHT strategy is a chemical
derivatization technique using hydrazide chemistry to derivatize the
reducing end of N-linked glycans and incorporates either a natural
(NAT, 12C6) or a stable-isotope label (SIL, 13C6) to carry out relative quantification. Here
we present GlycoHunter, a user-friendly software created in MATLAB
that enables researchers to accurately and efficiently process MS1
glycomics data where a NAT and SIL pair is generated for relative
quantification, including but not limited to, INLIGHT. GlycoHunter
accepts the commonly used data file formats imzML and mzXML and effectively
identifies all peak pairs associated with NAT- and SIL-labeled N-linked
glycans using MS1 data. It also includes the ability to tailor the
search parameters and export the results for further analysis using
Skyline or Excel.

聚糖(Glycans)参与诸多生物学活性过程；然而其结构异常多样且复杂，往往使得糖组学(glycomics)领域难以仅依靠单一分析技术完成完整解析。多种化学衍生策略与生物信息学软件的开发，为糖组学领域带来了多项极具突破性的分析进展。INLIGHT策略是一种基于酰肼化学的化学衍生技术，可对N-连接聚糖(N-linked glycans)的还原端进行衍生化，并引入天然同位素标记（NAT, ¹²C₆）或稳定同位素标记（SIL, ¹³C₆）以实现相对定量分析。本研究介绍了一款基于MATLAB开发的用户友好型软件GlycoHunter，研究人员可借助该工具精准且高效地处理用于相对定量分析的、带有NAT与SIL标记对的MS1级糖组学数据，适用范围涵盖但不限于INLIGHT策略。GlycoHunter支持imzML与mzXML这两种通用数据文件格式，并可通过MS1级数据有效识别所有与NAT及SIL标记的N-连接聚糖相关的峰对。该软件还支持自定义搜索参数，并可将分析结果导出，以供Skyline或Excel开展后续分析。