A mixture of octa- and decasaccharides obtained by the digestion with the hyaluronidase ofchondroitin sulfate E derived from squid cartilage was subfractionated into 20 and 23 different components,respectively, by anion-exchange HPLC. MALDI-TOF/MS was used to assign the sugar and sulfatecomposition of the putative octa- and decasaccharides, and a disaccharide composition analysis revealedthe building blocks to be A- [GlcUA
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1-3GalNAc(4S)], C- [GlcUA
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1-3GalNAc(6S)], and E- [GlcUA
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1-3GalNAc(4S,6S)] units, where 4S and 6S represent 4-
O- and 6-
O-sulfate, respectively. The sequences ofthese octa- and decasaccharides were determined at low picomole amounts by a combination of enzymaticdigestions with chondroitinases in conjunction with anion-exchange HPLC. Sequencing revealed that eachfraction is a mixture of a major component together with one to three minor components, reflecting theheterogeneity of the parent polysaccharide. Among the 11 different octasaccharide sequences reportedhere, 8 are novel, while all of the 6 decasaccharide sequences are novel, and this is the first report of thesequencing of CS oligosaccharides longer than octasaccharides. The reactivity of the monoclonal antibodyMO-225 with octa- and decasaccharides tested with an oligosaccharide microarray revealed that a CS-Edecasaccharide is the minimal requirement for antibody recognition. Among the 6 decasaccharides, onlyE-E-E-E-C was recognized by MO-225, suggesting the requirement of a C-unit at the reducing end andalso the importance of chain length, which in turn may indicate the importance of the conformation acquiredby this specific sequence for antibody recognition.