Song Xuezheng, Heimburg-Molinaro Jamie, Smith David F, Cummings Richard D
Department of Biochemistry, The National Center for Functional Glycomics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
Department of Biochemistry, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, Emory University School of Medicine, 1510 Clifton Road, Suite 4025, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
Glycoconj J. 2015 Oct;32(7):465-73. doi: 10.1007/s10719-015-9584-8. Epub 2015 Apr 16.
This review discusses the challenges facing research in 'functional glycomics' and the novel technologies that are being developed to advance the field. The structural complexity of glycans and glycoconjugates makes studies of both their structures and recognition difficult. However, these intricate structures can be captured from their natural sources, isolated and fluorescently-tagged for detailed structural analysis and for presentation on glycan microarrays for functional recognition by glycan-binding proteins. These advances in glycan preparation and manipulation enable the streamlining of functional glycomics studies and will help to propel the field forward in studying natural, biologically relevant glycans.
本综述讨论了“功能糖组学”研究面临的挑战以及为推动该领域发展而正在开发的新技术。聚糖和糖缀合物的结构复杂性使得对其结构和识别的研究都很困难。然而,这些复杂的结构可以从其天然来源中捕获、分离并进行荧光标记,以进行详细的结构分析,并用于在聚糖微阵列上展示,以供聚糖结合蛋白进行功能识别。聚糖制备和操作方面的这些进展使得功能糖组学研究得以简化,并将有助于推动该领域在研究天然的、与生物学相关的聚糖方面向前发展。