Bovine submaxillary mucin (BSM) is a gel-forming glycoprotein polymer, and Ser/Thr-linked glycans (O-glycans) are important in regulating BSM's viscoelasticity and polymerization. However, details of O-glycosylation have not been reported. This study investigates the structural and quantitative characteristics of O-glycans and identifies O-glycosylation sites in BSM using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The O-glycans (consisting of di- to octa-saccharides) and their quantities (%) relative to total O-glycans (100%; 1.1 pmol per 1 μg of BSM) were identified with 14 major (>1.0%), 12 minor (0.1%-1.0%), and eight trace (<0.1%) O-glycans, which were characterized based on their constituents (sialylation (14 O-glycans; 81.9%, sum of relative quantities of each glycan), non-sialylation (20; 18.1%), fucosylation (20; 17.5%), and terminal-galactosylation (6; 3.6%)) and six core structure types [Gal-GalNAc, Gal-(GlcNAc)GalNAc, GlcNAc-GalNAc, GlcNAc-(GlcNAc)GalNAc, and GalNAc-GalNAc]. O-glycosylation sites were identified using O-glycopeptides (bold underlined; ₅₆SGETRTSVI, ₂₅₉SHSSSGRSRTI, ₂₇₂GSPSSVSSAEQI, ₃₀₇RPSYGAL, ₆₂₅QTLGPL, ₇₂₈TMTTRTSVVV, and ₁₀₈₀RPEDNTAVA) obtained from proteolytic BSM; these sites are in the four domains of BSM. The gel-forming mucins share common domain structures and glycosylation patterns; these results could provide useful information on mucin-type O-glycans. This is the first study to characterize O-glycans and identify O-glycosylation sites in BSM.

#	Concept	H-Index	Publications	Citations
1	Medicine	1	1	15
2	Natural Sciences	1	1	15
3	Biochemistry	1	1	15
4	Biomolecular Engineering	1	1	15
5	Glycobiology	1	1	15

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