Question

Suggest a reason why is heterogeneity in glycosylation patterns, and glycosylation that differs based on host organism a problem when trying to understand the role of glycosylation in disease physiology?

Answer 1

Glycosylation is an important and highly regulated mechanism of secondary protein processing within cells .its play a critical role indetrmining protein structure, function and stability .structurally glycosylation is known to affect the three dimensional configuration of proteins.glycoprotein generally exist as population of glycolated varient (glycoforms) of a single polypeptide .although the same glycosylation machinary is available to all proteins that enter the seceatory pathway in a given cell, most glycoproteins emerge with characteristic glycosylation pattern and hetrogeneous populations of glycans at each glycosylation site.

The recoginition of identical motifs in different glycans allows a hetrogeneous population of glycoform to participate in specific biological interactions .

There is long history of glycosylation in mammalian cells ,plants fungi (yeast) and bacteria using genetic strategies and many well characterized glycosylation mutant are available .

The secreted and cell surface glycomes reflect overall cellular status in health and disease .in fact changes in glycosylation can modulate inflammatory responses,enable viral immune escape,promote camcer cell metastaties or regulate apoptosis.the com possition of the glycoms also affects kidney function in health and disease.