Abstract
Proteins undergo co- and posttranslational modifications, and their glycosylation is the most frequent and structurally variegated type. Histochemically, the detection of glycan presence has first been performed by stains. The availability of carbohydrate-specific tools (lectins, monoclonal antibodies) has revolutionized glycophenotyping, allowing monitoring of distinct structures. The different types of protein glycosylation in Eukaryotes are described. Following this educational survey, examples where known biological function is related to the glycan structures carried by proteins are given. In particular, mucins and their glycosylation patterns are considered as instructive proof-of-principle case. The tissue and cellular location of glycoprotein biosynthesis and metabolism is reviewed, with attention to new findings in goblet cells. Finally, protein glycosylation in disease is documented, with selected examples, where aberrant glycan expression impacts on normal function to let disease pathology become manifest. The histological applications adopted in these studies are emphasized throughout the text.
Highlights
Histochemists and cell biologists are familiar with the ubiquitous presence of glycans
The metabolic pathways that are responsible for this process include the generation of a series of precursors from monosaccharides, the nucleotide sugars; sugar transporters that ensure that the necessary intermediates are available in the cell to generate the precursors; glycosyltransferases, which transfer the sugars to the acceptor protein to form the desired glycan structure, plus a number of other proteins which contribute to the formation of the final glycoprotein structure designed for specific biological function (Schachter and Brockhausen 1992; Liu et al 2010; Corfield 2015); insights into details of branch-end elaborations, typically by sialylation, are presented by Bhide and Colley (2017, in this issue)
This review provides an overview of the range of glycan structures present in and utilized by the Eukaryotes
Summary
Histochemists and cell biologists are familiar with the ubiquitous presence of glycans. In order to illustrate the importance and scope of protein glycosylation it is necessary to enumerate the range glycan structures that have been identified and which are carried by glycoproteins.
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