J Immunol Methods. 2015 Feb; 417(NA):34-44.

PubMed ID: 25523925

A method for high-throughput, sensitive analysis of IgG Fc and Fab glycosylation by capillary electrophoresis

Mahan AE, Tedesco J, Dionne K, Baruah K, Cheng HD, De Jager PL, Barouch DH, Suscovich T, Ackerman M, Crispin M, Alter G

The N-glycan of the IgG constant region (Fc) plays a central role in tuning and directing multiple antibody functions in vivo, including antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, complement deposition, and the regulation of inflammation, among others. However, traditional methods of N-glycan analysis, including HPLC and mass spectrometry, are technically challenging and ill suited to handle the large numbers of low concentration samples analyzed in clinical or animal studies of the N-glycosylation of polyclonal IgG. Here we describe a capillary electrophoresis-based technique to analyze plasma-derived polyclonal IgG-glycosylation quickly and accurately in a cost-effective, sensitive manner that is well suited for high-throughput analyses. Additionally, because a significant fraction of polyclonal IgG is glycosylated on both Fc and Fab domains, we developed an approach to separate and analyze domain-specific glycosylation in polyclonal human, rhesus and mouse IgGs. Overall, this protocol allows for the rapid, accurate, and sensitive analysis of Fc-specific IgG glycosylation, which is critical for population-level studies of how antibody glycosylation may vary in response to vaccination or infection, and across disease states ranging from autoimmunity to cancer in both clinical and animal studies.