Kaltner H, Gabius H J
Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Veterinärstr. 13, D-80539 München, Germany.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2001;491:79-94. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4615-1267-7_6.
The genetic code connects the two biochemical dimensions of nucleic acids and proteins. Theoretical calculations on coding capacity reveal that oligosaccharides as hardware surpass peptides by more than seven orders of magnitude based on hexamer synthesis. Thus, the sugar code establishes the third dimension of biological information transfer. Using carbohydrate-binding proteins (lectins, enzymes and antibodies) the information content of such epitopes is decoded. Currently, five families of animal lectins are defined in structural terms. i.e. the C-type, I-type and P-type groups, the galectins and the pentraxins. They are involved in intra- and intercellular glycan routing using oligosaccharides as postal-code equivalents and acting as defense molecules homing in on foreign or aberrant glycosignatures, as crosslinking agent in biosignaling and as coordinator of transient or firm cell-cell/cell-matrix contacts. By delineating the driving forces toward complex formation, knowledge about the causes for specificity can be turned into design of custom-made high-affinity ligands for clinical application, e.g. in anti-adhesion therapy, drug targeting or diagnostic histopathology.
遗传密码连接了核酸和蛋白质这两个生物化学维度。关于编码能力的理论计算表明，基于六聚体合成，作为硬件的寡糖在编码能力上超过肽七个多数量级。因此，糖密码建立了生物信息传递的第三个维度。利用碳水化合物结合蛋白（凝集素、酶和抗体）可对这类表位的信息内容进行解码。目前，从结构角度定义了五个动物凝集素家族，即C型、I型和P型组、半乳糖凝集素和五聚素。它们参与细胞内和细胞间聚糖的导向，将寡糖用作相当于邮政编码的物质，并作为防御分子追踪外来或异常的糖基特征，作为生物信号传导中的交联剂以及作为瞬时或牢固的细胞 - 细胞/细胞 - 基质接触的协调者。通过描绘形成复合物的驱动力，有关特异性原因的知识可转化为定制高亲和力配体的设计，用于临床应用，例如抗黏附治疗、药物靶向或诊断组织病理学。
