(4-N-5-Dimethylaminonaphthalene-1-sulfonyl-2-difluoromethylphenyl)-beta-d-galactopyranoside was synthesized and successfully tested on beta-galactosidases from Xanthomonas manihotis (Wong-Madden, S. T., and Landry, D. Glycobiology (1995) 5, 19-28 and Taron, C. H., Benner, J. S., Hornstra, L. J., and Guthrie, E. P. (1995) Glycobiology 5, 603-610), Escherichia coli (Jacobson, R. H., Zhang, X. J., DuBose, R. F., and Matthews, B. W. (1994) Nature 369, 761-766), and Bacillus circulans (Fujimoto, H., Miyasato, M., Ito, Y., Sasaki, T., and Ajisaka, K. (1988) Glycoconj. J. 15, 155-160) for the rapid identification of the catalytic site. Reaction of the irreversible inhibitor with enzymes proceeded to afford a fluorescence-labeled protein suitable for further high throughput characterization by using antidansyl antibody and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight/time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF/TOF). Specific probing by a fluorescent aglycon greatly facilitated identification of the labeled peptide fragments from beta-galactosidases. It was demonstrated by using X. manihotis beta-galactosidase that the Arg-58 residue, which is located within a sequence of 56IPRAYWKD63, was labeled by nucleophilic attack of the guanidinyl group. This sequence including Arg-58 (Leu-46 to Tyr-194) was similar to that (Met-1 to Tyr-151) of Thermus thermophilus A4, which is the first known structure of glycoside hydrolases family 42 (Hidaka, M., Fushinobu, S., Ohtsu, N., Motoshima, H., Matsuzawa, H., Shoun, H., and Wakagi, T. (2002) J. Mol. Biol. 322, 79-91). A catalytic glutamic acid (Glu-537) of E. coli beta-galactosidase was proved to be labeled by the same procedure, suggesting that the modification site with this irreversible substrate might depend both on the nucleophilicity of the amino acids and their spatial arrangement in the individual catalytic cavity. Similarly, a Glu-259 in 257TLEE260 was selectively labeled using B. circulans beta-galactosidase, indicating that Glu-259 is one of the nucleophiles in the active site. The present method can be readily extended to other glycosidases and should greatly aid the high throughput proteomics of many glycoside hydrolases showing both retaining- and inverting-type mechanisms.