High Performance Capillary Electrophoresis (HPCE) is rapidly gaining acceptance as a modern powerful analytic tool for the study of bioactive molecules, because of its capability of rapid, tremendous efficiency, simply, reproducible, automated and extremely high-resolution separation of complex mixtures of diverse size and nature in very small sample volumes. In this review we introduced the wide application of HPCE on carbohydrates, one of the most basic life substances, and discussed the approaches recently developed for overcoming the separating and detecting difficulties in electrophoresis, including four separating modes-CZE, CGE, MECC, and CITP, and five detection methods, such as direct UV/Fluorescence detection, indirect UV/Fluorescence detection, refractive index detection, amperometric detection and mass spectroscopy method. In the end, we also predict the future application of this promising technique in ultramicro-analysis of carbohydrates in a single cell.

Key words: CAPILLARY ISOTACHOPHORESIS, OLIGOSACCHARIDE, POLYSACCHARIDE, MONOSACCHARIDE, CAPILLARY ZONE ELECTROPHORESIS, GEL ELECTROPHORESIS, CARBOHYDRATE, CAPILLARY CHROMATOGRAPHY