Why do you think your paper is highly cited?

Mass spectrometry has been widely used in the analysis of biomolecules, such as mass spectrometry-based approaches for proteomics, lipidomics, glycomics, and metabonomics. Coupling of capillary electrophoresis to a mass spectrometry instrument (CE-MS) provides a highly sensitive and powerful technique for analytical chemistry. Since 2004, the journal Electrophoresis has been published a special issue dedicated to CE-MS each year. As pointed out by Phillipe Schmitt-Kopplin in the editorial of 2009 special issue, CE-MS has become an essential bioanalytical tool in the fields of life, pharmaceutical, food, environmental, and forensic sciences, etc. It is orthogonal and complementary to many analytical approaches needed in modern system-based biology/(Electrophoresis 30: 1609, 2009).

 Does it describe a new discovery, methodology, or synthesis of knowledge?

This article demonstrated the merit of CE-MS in bacterial glycome researches, due to its high sensitivity and small sample size. For example, this technique has been successfully applied to characterizing the bacterial carbohydrates from an ex vivo source.

 Would you summarize the significance of your paper in layman's terms?

When human are infected by bacteria, the host will activate their innate immune system to battle the infections, e.g., produce antibodies. The main target of the antibodies against bacterial infection is bacterial surface polysaccharides. In order to understand antigenic and immunogenic properties of bacterial polysaccharides, it is important to delineate their precise chemical structure in vivo, to aim at the development of effective immunotherapeutic intervention strategies.

 How did you become involved in this research and were any particular problems encountered along the way?

Our organization has an ongoing program of research dedicated to the development of vaccines against bacterial infections. One of our approaches is to fully characterize the bacterial surface carbohydrates, to design and synthesize glycoconjugates which chemically mimic the structure of bacterial antigens in their surface. However, bacteria constantly change their surface decoration to escape the host immune system, due to the phase variation, a mechanism responsible for expressing or not expressing some carbohydrate residues.

 Where do you see your research leading in the future?

I expect that the technique, with further improvement in CE system and mass spectrometry, will play an important role in the development vaccines for bacteriology. Additionally, it can be employed as a complementary tool for bacterial identification and characterization.

 Do you foresee any social or political implications for your research?

I believe that this technique has social implications due to its application for vaccine development and, potentially, bacterial identification.

Jianjun Li, Ph.D.
Senior Research Officer
Institute for Biological Sciences
National Research Council Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

KEYWORDS: HAEMOPHILUS-INFLUENZAE LIPOPOLYSACCHARIDE; AMPLIFIED SAMPLE STACKING; GUILLAIN-BARRE-SYNDROME; SHEATH FLOW INTERFACE; CAMPYLOBACTER-JEJUNI; STRUCTURAL-ANALYSIS; NEISSERIA-MENINGITIDIS; INNER-CORE; CAPSULAR POLYSACCHARIDE; HELICOBACTER-PYLORI.