Glycan Moieties Of Glycoproteins Research Articles

Site-Selective and Biocompatible Growth of Polymers from Glycan Moieties of Glycoproteins and Living Cells.

Formation of protein-polymer conjugates (PPCs) is critical for many studies in chemical biology, biomedicine, and enzymatic catalysis. Polymers with coordinated physicochemical properties confer synergistic functions to PPCs that overcome the inherent limitation of proteins. However, application of PPCs has been synthetically restricted by the limited modification sites and polymer grafting method. Here, we present a versatile strategy for site-selective PPC synthesis. The initiator was specifically tethered to the preoxidized glycan moieties through oxime chemistry. Polymer brushes were grown in situ from the glycan by atom-transfer radical polymerization to generate well-controlled PPCs. Notably, the modification is site-specific, multivalent, and alterable depending on protein glycosylation. Additionally, we demonstrated that the cytocompatible method enabled the growth of polymer chains from the surface of living yeast cells. These results verified a facile technology for surface modification of biomacromolecules by desired polymers for various biomedical applications.

Utilization of Host-Derived Glycans by Intestinal Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium Species.

Members of the genus Lactobacillus are commonly found at the gastrointestinal tract and other mucosal surfaces of humans. This genus includes various species with a great number of potentially probiotic bacteria. Other often-used probiotic species belong to Bifidobacterium, a genus almost exclusively associated with the gut. As probiotics must survive and be metabolically active at their target sites, namely host mucosal surfaces, consumption of host-produced glycans is a key factor for their survival and activity. The ability to metabolize glycans such as human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), glycosaminoglycans and the glycan moieties of glycoproteins and glycolipids found at the mucosal surfaces grants a competitive advantage to lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. The analyses of the great number of sequenced genomes from these bacteria have revealed that many of them encode a wide assortment of genes involved in the metabolism and transport of carbohydrates, including several glycoside hydrolases required for metabolizing the carbohydrate moieties of mucins and HMOs. Here, the current knowledge on the genetic mechanisms, known catabolic pathways and biochemical properties of enzymes involved in the utilization of host-produced glycans by lactobacilli and bifidobacteria will be summarized.

Mass spectrometry-based analysis of glycoproteins and its clinical applications in cancer biomarker discovery

Most proteins are glycosylated, glycosylation is one of the most important posttranslational modifications of proteins and plays essential roles in various biological processes. Aberration in the glycan moieties of glycoproteins is associated with many diseases. It is especially critical to develop the rapid and sensitive methods for analysis of aberrant glycoproteins associated with diseases. With recent advances in proteomics, analytical and computational technologies, glycoproteomics, the global analysis of glycoproteins, is rapidly emerging as a subfield of proteomics with high biological and clinical relevance. Glycoproteomics integrates glycoprotein enrichment and proteomics technologies to support the systematic identification and quantification of glycoproteins in a complex sample. It is especially critical to develop the rapid and sensitive methods for analysis of aberrant glycoproteins associated with diseases. Mass spectrometry (MS) has become a powerful tool for mapping glycoprotein glycosylation and detailed glycan structural determination. Especially, tandem mass spectrometry can provide highly informative fragments for structural identification of glycoproteins. This review provides an overview of the development of MS technologies and their applications in identification of abnormal glycoproteins and glycans in human serum to screen cancer biomarkers in recent years.

Affinity ligands for glycoprotein purification based on the multi-component Ugi reaction.

One challenge facing the purification of therapeutic glycoproteins by affinity chromatography is creating ligands specific for the glycan moiety. Affinity chromatography of glycoproteins is currently conducted with immobilized lectins or boronates, although biomimetic ligands could present a more desirable option. This work describes the rational design and combinatorial synthesis of carbohydrate-binding ligands based on the solid phase multi-component Ugi reaction. An aldehyde-functionalized Sepharose™ solid support constitutes one component (aldehyde) in the four-component reaction, while the other three components (a primary/secondary amine, a carboxylic acid and an isocyanide) are varied in a combinatorial fashion to generate a tri-substituted Ugi scaffold which provides a degree of rigidity and is functionally suitable for interacting with the glycan moiety of glycoproteins. An Ugi library containing 48 ligands was initially screened against glucose oxidase (GOx) as the model glycoprotein to identify a candidate ligand, A13C24I8, which showed affinity to GOx through its carbohydrate moiety. Immobilized ligand A13C24I8 demonstrated a static binding capacity of 16.7mg GOx/ml resin and an apparent dissociation constant (Kd) of 1.45×10(-6)M at pH 7.4. The adsorbent can also bind 8.1mg AGP/ml resin and displays an apparent affinity constant Kd=1.44×10(-5)M. The ligand has a sugar specificity in the following sequence: sorbitol>fructose>mannitol>ribose>arabinose>xylose>galactose>mannose>glucose>fructose; however, it did not display any specificity for sialic acid or methyl α-D-glycosides. A control ligand, generated by substitution of C24 (3-carboxyphenylboronic acid) with C7 (4-hydroxyphenyl acetic acid), failed to show affinity to the carbohydrate moiety, supporting the importance of the role that boronic acid group plays in sugar binding. GOx spiked E. coli samples were loaded onto immobilized ligand A13C24I8, 3-aminophenylboronic acid (APBA) and Concanavalin A and analysis of peak elution fraction with SDS-PAGE and gel densitometry showed that ligand A13C24I8 is capable of purifying GOx to 92% (w/w) with respect to the protein specific activity of 69% under current chromatographic conditions. The solid phase Ugi scaffold provides a strategy for the development of cost-effective pseudo-biospecific ligands for glycoprotein purification.

Mass spectrometry-based analysis of glycoproteins and its clinical applications in cancer biomarker discovery.

Glycosylation is one of the most important posttranslational modifications of proteins and plays essential roles in various biological processes. Aberration in the glycan moieties of glycoproteins is associated with many diseases. It is especially critical to develop the rapid and sensitive methods for analysis of aberrant glycoproteins associated with diseases. Mass spectrometry (MS) has become a powerful tool for glycoprotein analysis. Especially, tandem mass spectrometry can provide highly informative fragments for structural identification of glycoproteins. This review provides an overview of the development of MS technologies and their applications in identification of abnormal glycoproteins and glycans in human serum to screen cancer biomarkers in recent years.

Protein modification during anti-viral heat-treatment bioprocessing of factor VIII concentrates, factor IX concentrates, and model proteins in the presence of sucrose.

To ensure the optimal safety of plasma derived and new generation recombinant proteins, heat treatment is customarily applied in the manufacturing of such biopharmaceuticals as a means of viral inactivation. In subjecting proteins to anti-viral heat-treatment it is necessary to use high concentrations of thermostabilizing excipients to prevent protein damage, and it is therefore imperative that the correct balance between bioprocessing conditions, maintenance of protein integrity and virus kill is found. In this study we have utilized model proteins (lysozyme, fetuin, and human serum albumin) and plasma-derived therapeutic proteins (factor VIII and factor IX) to investigate the protein modifications that occur during anti-viral heat treatment. Specifically, we investigated the relationship between bioprocessing conditions and the type and extent of protein modification under a variety of industrially relevant wet and lyophilized heat treatments using sucrose as a thermostabilizing agent. Heat treatment led to the formation of disulfide crosslinks and aggregates in proteins containing free cysteine residues. Terminal oligosaccharide sialic acid residues were hydrolyzed from the glycan moieties of glycoproteins during anti-viral heat treatment. Heat treatment promoted sucrose hydrolysis to yield glucose and fructose, leading, in turn, to the glycation of lysine amino groups in those proteins containing di-lysine motifs. During extended hear treatments, 1,2-dicarbonyl type advanced glycation end-products were also formed. Glycation-type modifications were more prevalent in wet heat-treated protein formulations.

Residual 2H Quadrupolar Couplings in Weakly Aligned Carbohydrates

We report a novel two-dimensional NMR pulse scheme for the 1H-detected observation of 2H in isotopically 13C, 2H-enriched carbohydrates. This scheme is used for the indirect observation of residual quadrupolar couplings in 13C, 2H-enriched methyl-beta-D-glucopyranoside weakly aligned in a dilute lyotropic liquid-crystalline medium comprising 20% (w/v) dihexanoyl-phosphatidylcholine/dimyristoyl-phosphatidylcholine (1:3 mol/mol) in D2O. The observed residual quadrupolar couplings are substantially larger than residual dipolar one-bond 13C-1H couplings under the same experimental conditions. These quadrupolar couplings are thus a useful alternative to dipolar couplings for the structural analysis of small molecules that align very weakly in dilute liquid-crystalline media. Moreover, since the quadrupolar coupling constant is very uniform throughout endocyclic deuterons of the carbohydrate, these data suggest that adoption of a single average value of this parameter in 2H relaxation studies on the glycan moieties of glycoproteins and glycopeptides is a valid assumption.