Gain-of-function Chinese hamster ovary mutants LEC18 and LEC14 each express a novel N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase activity.

LEC18 and LEC14 cells are gain-of-function glycosylation mutants isolated from Chinese hamster ovary cells for resistance to pea lectin. Structural studies have shown that LEC18 cells synthesize complex N-glycans with a GlcNAc residue linked at the O-6 position of the core GlcNAc (Raju, T. S., Ray, M. K., and Stanley, P. (1995) J. Biol. Chem. 270, 30294-30302), whereas LEC14 cells synthesize complex N-glycans with a GlcNAc residue linked at the O-2 position of the core beta-linked Man residue (Raju, T. S., and Stanley, P. (1996) J. Biol. Chem. 271, 7484-7493). Both modifications are novel and have not been reported in glycoproteins from any other source. We now show that, in both LEC18 and LEC14 cells, GlcNAc transfer is mediated by a distinct N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (GlcNAc-T) activity. The LEC18 activity, termed GlcNAc-TVIII, transfers GlcNAc to GlcNAcbeta1-O-pNP and to a GlcNAc-terminating, biantennary, complex N-glycan, with or without a core fucose. By contrast, the LEC14 transferase, termed GlcNAc-TVII, does not have significant activity with simple acceptors, and transfers GlcNAc preferentially to a GlcNAc-terminating biantennary glycopeptide that contains a core fucose residue. The acceptor specificities and other biochemical properties of GlcNAc-TVII and GlcNAc-TVIII differ from previously characterized GlcNAc-transferases including GlcNAc-TIII, indicating that they represent new members of the mammalian GlcNAc-T group of transferases.