One magazine likened the study of carbohydrates, called glycobiology, to Cinderella—neglected stepsister to her two more glamorous siblings, DNA and protein.1 Momentum is building, however, to do for carbohydrates what scientists have done for genomes, and are attempting to do for proteomes: to characterize the entire complement of these sugar chains in a cell, called the "glycome." Researchers are guardedly optimistic. According to Ajit Varki, professor of medicine and cell and molecular biology, and director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California, San Diego, "we don't know what's going to happen to Cinderella at midnight."
Scientists acknowledge that sequencing the genome was nothing compared to solving the proteome. Likewise, the glycome will make the proteome seem like child's play. "The problem is that [the glycome is] probably thousands of times as complicated as the genome, in magnitude of complexity and level of diversity," says Varki. ...
