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.

糖类在众多生物活动中扮演着至关重要的角色；然而，其结构之多样化与复杂性往往使得糖组学领域难以仅凭单一分析技术得以解决。多种化学衍生化策略及生物信息学软件的发展，为糖组学领域的分析进展做出了重要贡献。INLIGHT策略是一种利用叠氮化物化学对N-连接糖类的还原端进行衍生化的化学衍生化技术，并采用天然标记（NAT，12C6）或稳定同位素标记（SIL，13C6）以实现相对定量。在此，我们推出GlycoHunter，这是一款基于MATLAB开发的用户友好型软件，旨在帮助研究人员准确且高效地处理MS1糖组学数据，其中NAT和SIL成对生成以实现相对定量，包括但不限于INLIGHT。GlycoHunter能够接受常用的数据文件格式imzML和mzXML，并有效识别所有与NAT-和SIL标记的N-连接糖类相关的峰对，利用MS1数据进行处理。此外，该软件还具备定制搜索参数和将结果导出以供使用Skyline或Excel进行进一步分析的功能。