The structure of the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae strain 176 has been investigated. Electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESIMS) on O-deacylated LPS (LPS-OH) and core oligosaccharide (OS) samples obtained after mild-acid hydrolysis of LPS provided information on the composition and relative abundance of the glycoforms. ESIMS tandem-mass spectrometry on LPS-OH confirmed the presence of minor sialylated and disialylated glycoforms. Oligosaccharide samples were studied in detail using high-field NMR techniques. It was found that the LPS contains the common inner-core element of H. influenzae. L-alpha-D-Hepp-(1-->2)-[PEtn-->6]-L-alpha-D-Hepp-(1-->3)-[beta-D-Glep-(1 -->4)]-L-alpha-D-Hepp-(1-->5)[PPEtn-->4]-alpha-Kdop-(2-->6)-Lipid A having glycosyl substitution at the O-3 position of the terminal heptose as recently observed for non-typeable H. influenzae strain 486 [Mansson, M.: Bauer. S. H. J.: Hood, D. W.; Richards, J. C. Moxon, E. R. Schweda. E. K. H., Eur. J. Biochem. 2001. 268. 2148-2159]. The following LPS structures were identified as the major glycoforms. the most significant being indicated with an asterisk (*) (glycoforms are partly substituted with Gly at the terminal Hep): [GRAPHICS].