© 2004 National Academy of Sciences
Three bacterial and viral glycan-binding proteins were tested for their sugar-binding properties using a 200-member carbohydrate array. By looking at what the bound sugars have in common, scientists can infer a protein's particular binding motif. The influenza hemagglutinin shown at middle, for example, binds exclusively to glycans terminating with a Neu5Aca2-3Gal grouping. (Reprinted with permission from O. Blixt et al.,
Cells are coated with carbohydrates, as are many of the proteins and lipids contained within cells. Scientists increasingly are coating microarrays with carbs, too. More than just frosting, they hope that these carbohydrate arrays can advance research into the vital roles sugars play in cancer, infection, and cell interactions such as fertilization.
"Carbohydrates play these very important roles in biology, but our understanding of [them] ... lags very far behind the understanding of proteins and nucleic acids. There's ...
