Glycosyltransferases Involved in the Biosynthesis of Glycolipids

Abstract

Of the glycosyltransferases involved in the synthesis of glycosphingolipids, those involved in the common steps, those responsible for the synthesis of globo-series glycolipids, and those for the synthesis of lacto/neolacto-series glycolipids were summarized here. The common and fundamental steps consist of reactions catalyzed by Glc-Cer synthase (Ichikawa et al. 1996), lactosylceramide synthase (Nomura et al. 1997), or GalCer synthase (Schulte and Stoffel 1993). Globo-series includes the reactions catalyzed by Gb3/CD77 synthase (Furukawa et al. 2007), Gb4 synthase (Furukawa et al. 2007), Gb5 synthase (Zhou et al. 2000), or sialyl-Gb5 synthase (monosialyl-galactosylgloboside, MSGG) (Saito et al. 2003). Furthermore, DSGG (disialyl-galactosylgloboside) (Furukawa et al. 2007) is synthesized from MSGG by ST6GalNAcVI. Lacto/neolactoseries are generated by various enzymes consisting of amino-CTH synthase (β3GlcNAcTV) (Togayachi et al. 2001), core 1 precursor synthase (β3GalTV) (Isshiki et al. 1999) β4-galactosyltransferase, α2,3/6-sialyltransferase, α1,3/4-fucosyl transferase, ST6GalNAc-VI (α2,6-sialyltransferase) (Furukawa et al. 2007), etc.