Plant Glycosylation Research Articles

Protein glycosylation in diverse cell systems: implications for modification and analysis of recombinant proteins

A major challenge for the biotechnology industry is to engineer the glycosylation pathways of expression systems to synthesize recombinant proteins with human glycosylation. Inappropriate glycosylation can result in reduced activity, limited half-life in circulation and unwanted immunogenicity. In this review, the complexities of glycosylation in human cells are explained and compared with glycosylation in bacteria, yeasts, fungi, insects, plants and nonhuman mammalian species. Key advances in the engineering of the glycosylation of expression systems are highlighted. Advances in the challenging and technically complex field of glycan analysis are also described. The emergence of a new generation of expression systems with sophisticated engineering for humanized glycosylation of glycoproteins appears to be on the horizon.

Mutants in DEFECTIVE GLYCOSYLATION, an Arabidopsis homolog of an oligosaccharyltransferase complex subunit, show protein underglycosylation and defects in cell differentiation and growth

A mutant called defective glycosylation1-1 (dgl1-1) was identified in Arabidopsis based on a growth defect of the dark-grown hypocotyl and an abnormal composition of the non-cellulosic cell wall polysaccharides. dgl1-1 is altered in a protein ortholog of human OST48 or yeast WBP1, an essential protein subunit of the oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) complex, which is responsible for the transfer in the ER of the N-linked glycan precursor onto Asn residues of candidate proteins. Consistent with the known function of the OST complex in eukaryotes, the dgl1-1 mutation led to a reduced N-linked glycosylation of the ER-resident protein disulfide isomerase. A second more severe mutant (dgl1-2) was embryo-lethal. Microscopic analysis of dgl1-1 revealed developmental defects including reduced cell elongation and the collapse and differentiation defects of cells in the central cylinder. These defects were accompanied by changes in the non-cellulosic polysaccharide composition, including the accumulation of ectopic callose. Interestingly, in contrast to other dwarf mutants that are altered in early steps of the N-glycan processing, dgl1-1 did not exhibit a cellulose deficiency. Together, these results confirm the role of DGL1 in N-linked glycosylation, cell growth and differentiation in plants.

Bioprospecting in plants for engineered proteins

For more than two decades, bioengineered plants have produced protein therapeutics for human and animal use. Almost all proteins produced by other existing systems, including antibodies, vaccines and plasma proteins, have now been manufactured in plants. Considering the limitations of microbial and mammalian reactor-based protein-production technologies and the impending bottleneck in manufacturing capacity, plants are now emerging as an attractive alternative system with which to supply the growing need for protein-based therapeutics. However, full realization of the promise of plant-derived engineered proteins requires that we confront the dual challenges of bioequivalence and product consistency, challenges that are largely related to post-translational protein modifications (PTMs) that are crucial to the structure and function of most eukaryotic proteins. Among the protein PTMs, the foremost challenge for bioactivity and acceptance by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and regulatory agencies is glycosylation. Advances made in recent years that 'humanize' plant glycosylation pathways combined with the discovery of terminal sialic acids (SAs) in plants now make feasible the bioengineering in plants of glycoproteins that have mammalian-like glycosylation.