Glycans in health and disease

Abstract

If a cell would produce one protein for each biological function, there would probably be a million of them. Still, the actual number is much lower. To save energy, cells use different methods to modify proteins, thus repurposing them and enabling them to perform different functions. The most common modification is glycosylation, a process in which one or more (the same or different) monosaccharide units are enzymatically linked to a protein (or another biomolecule). Glycan synthesis is complex and incompletely understood process in which different forms of various types of glycans are formed. A set of glycans present in one cell or an organism represents their glycome and is a reflection of cellular condition in a specific environment. Glycome is a very flexible entity that constantly changes even under physiological circumstances, thus reflecting habits of an organism as well as the process of biological ageing. It is, however, more interesting how glycome changes under specific and pathological conditions. Understanding how and why it changes will help treating and reverting some pathological processes.