Remodeling of glycans using glycosyltransferase genes.

Remodeling of glycans on the cell surface is an essential technique to analyze cellular function of lectin-glycan ligand interaction. Here we describe the methods to identify the responsible enzyme (glycosyltransferase) regulating the expression of the glycan of interest and to modulate the glycan expression by overexpressing the glycosyltransferase gene. For the identification of the responsible enzyme, we introduce a new method, CIRES (correlation index-based responsible-enzyme gene screening), that consists of statistical comparison of glycan expression profile obtained by flow cytometry and gene expression profile obtained by DNA microarray.