Patent ID: 8209132

Claim:
A system for identifying or comparing a sample comprising one or more glycans, the system comprising: (i) a database, tangibly embodied in a non-transitory computer-readable medium, containing information descriptive of a population of glycoconjugates that each comprise a glycan covalently linked to a non-saccharide moiety, the database comprising: one or more data units corresponding to the population of glycoconjugates, each of the data units including an identifier that includes three or more fields, each field for storing a value corresponding to one or more properties of the population of glycoconjugates, wherein the properties comprise: a. the total mass of glycans in the population of glycoconjugates; and b. the mass of a glycoconjugate in the population of glycoconjugates; and wherein the properties further comprise one or more properties selected from the group consisting of: c. the occupancy of one or more glycosylation sites in the population of glycoconjugates; d. the linkage of one or more glycans in the population of glycoconjugates; and e. the linkage abundance of one or more glycans in the population of glycoconjugates; and (ii) a feature extractor adapted to access the database and compare values therein with those from the sample, so that datasets are generated and pattern analysis or data mining is performed to generate or analyze patterns, relationships or rules between or among values within the database and those from the sample.