One major feature found in protein structures is the addition of sugars (glycosylation) to specific amino acid residues by post translational modification.  Complex sugar structures can be connected to these sites, and this can substantially modify the properties of these proteins, a main reason for their presence.  Attached sugars can assist in folding some proteins to their correct shape; so, affecting a proteins’ structure is a possible outcome.   SRCD is ideally well suited to determining any conformational differences that might arise from different ambient environments directly because of the extended wavelength range into the VUV region which provides greater information content.  However, attached sugars can contribute to the SRCD signal because their transitions are located more towards the VUV end of the spectrum.  This means that their presence can cause a problem in obtaining an accurate measure of the secondary structure content of the protein as a result.  Matsuo. and Gekko produced the landmark study of VUVCD spectra of selected saccharides, thereby demonstrating that glycoproteins would have a contribution to their spectra from their sugar content. From this and further studies they demonstrated that the SRCD spectral characteristics that arose from sugars could be attributed to many factors within their conformations: the configuration of the hydroxyl group about the C1 atom of the saccharide (alpha or beta conformation, or almost axial or equatorial to the plane of the sugar ring respectively), the axial or equatorial positioning of the remaining hydroxyl groups, the trans or gauche nature of the C5 hydroxymethyl group, and the glycosidic linkage (either 1-4 or 1-6) between sugar monomers.  Utilising this information, the Wallace group investigated the glycosylation of the voltage-gated sodium channel in experiments that relied on the fact that a CD(SRCD) spectrum of a mixture of components is the sum of all those components present.  The aim was to establish if there were differences in the three-dimensional structure of the channel with and without sugars attached to the structure; did glycosylation play any significant role in the function of these channels when sugars were attached?  Three experimental sets of SRCD spectra were collected; the non-glycosylated and glycosylated channel structures and a further one of the isolated sugar components that combined to form those attached to the channel.  Taking away the spectrum of the non-glycosylated channel from that of the glycosylated they demonstrated that the resultant difference spectrum corresponded to that of the sugar components.  This meant that there were no structural differences between the glycosylated and non-glycosylated channel structures, so sugar attachment played no key role in their function