Mardhekar Sandhya, Luong Phuong, Seeberger Peter H
Department of Biomolecular System, Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces Am Muhlenberg 1 14476 Potsdam Germany
Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freie Universität Berlin Arnimallee 22 14195 Berlin Germany.
RSC Chem Biol. 2025 Jun 4. doi: 10.1039/d5cb00090d.
Marine glycans are structurally diverse biomolecules that play pivotal roles in oceanic carbon cycling by regulating microbial metabolism, accelerating organic matter turnover, and contribute to carbon sequestration. Glycans originating from marine organisms exhibit a wide range of bioactivities and applications in medicine, biotechnology, cosmetics, food and agriculture. The structural complexity of glycans poses significant challenges in understanding their functions, as traditional purification and characterization methods are often hindered by their inherent heterogeneity. To overcome these challenges, enzymatic extraction using glycoside hydrolases and carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) enables the selective recovery of native glycans, while automated glycan assembly (AGA) provides a robust approach for the rapid and reproducible synthesis of structurally defined glycans. Subjecting synthetic glycans to enzymatic degradation enables researchers to explore the inverse relationship between glycan complexity and microbial degradation, suggesting that algae can generate complex glycans at a rate exceeding bacterial decomposition, thereby reinforcing carbon storage. Here, we present a comprehensive overview of marine glycan sources and their structural diversity. We highlight the importance of employing two complementary methods, enzymatic extraction as a critical tool for glycan identification and AGA as an advanced synthetic platform, to build a refined framework for elucidating the ecological role and industrial potential of marine glycans.
海洋聚糖是结构多样的生物分子，通过调节微生物代谢、加速有机物周转以及促进碳固存，在海洋碳循环中发挥着关键作用。源自海洋生物的聚糖在医学、生物技术、化妆品、食品和农业等领域展现出广泛的生物活性和应用。聚糖的结构复杂性给理解其功能带来了重大挑战，因为传统的纯化和表征方法常常受到其固有异质性的阻碍。为克服这些挑战，使用糖苷水解酶和碳水化合物活性酶（CAZyme）进行酶促提取能够选择性地回收天然聚糖，而自动化聚糖组装（AGA）为快速且可重复地合成结构明确的聚糖提供了一种可靠方法。让合成聚糖进行酶促降解使研究人员能够探索聚糖复杂性与微生物降解之间的反比关系，这表明藻类生成复杂聚糖的速度超过细菌分解速度，从而加强了碳储存。在此，我们全面概述了海洋聚糖的来源及其结构多样性。我们强调采用两种互补方法的重要性，即酶促提取作为聚糖鉴定的关键工具以及AGA作为先进的合成平台，以构建一个完善的框架来阐明海洋聚糖的生态作用和工业潜力。
