Despite being essential to all known living organisms, surprisingly little is known about glycans. The sugar code, this glycan-based braille employed by cells in our body to recognize, communicate, and interact with each other, is still largely unexplored. The reason for this lies in the complexity of carbohydrate structures, which renders their analysis extremely challenging. In recent years, however, a combination of technological innovations, such as ion mobility−mass spectrometry and gas-phase ion spectroscopy, have led to a paradigm shift in glycan analysis. In this review, our group aims to document this progress and provide a comprehensive overview of recent developments in the field. To emphasize the specific and often very different challenges associated with them, we address major classes of mammalian glycans individually. By doing so, we aim to put the spotlight on the most important element of glycomics: the sugars themselves.

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