Patent ID: 7056678

Claim:
A method for deriving structural information of a polysaccharide using binding information obtained from a plurality of saccharide-binding agents and markers, comprising: a) providing on a surface of a substrate a plurality of different essentially sequence- and/or site-specific saccharide-binding agents, which bind saccharide-recognition sequences of said polysaccharide, wherein a number of the plurality of said different essentially sequence- and/or site-specific saccharide binding agents are immobilized on the same surface of said substrate; b) contacting said surface with a polysaccharide to be analyzed, or with a mixture comprising a plurality of fragments of said polysaccharide; c) washing or otherwise removing unbound polysaccharide or polysaccharide fragments; d) adding to the surface obtained in step c) an essentially sequence- and/or site-specific saccharide-binding marker, or a mixture of essentially sequence- and/or site-specific saccharide-binding markers, wherein said marker or mixture of markers binds said bound polysaccharide; e) acquiring one or more images of the saccharide-binding markers that are bound to said surface; and f) generating from said one or more images, a map of recognition sites of said polysaccharide being analyzed, thereby deriving partial sequence information of said polysaccharide.