| abstract |
The invention provides the use of 2-picoline borane (2-PB) for the reductive amination of carbohydrates, especially glycans from book plasma, wherein the concentration of 2-PB is less than the concentration of NaBH(OAc) 3 or NaBH 3 CN required to obtain comparable conversion of the carbohydrate. It also describes a process for labelling a carbohydrate, the process comprising contacting the carbohydrate with a labelling agent, e.g. 2-aminobenzoic acid, 2-aminobenzamide, APTS, etc. in the presence of 2-picoline borane as reducing agent. Labelling the carbohydrate in this way facilitates detection using HPLC techniques, e.g. HILIC-HPLC-FL, HILIC-ESI-IT-MS, or capillary electrophoresis. |