The remarkable structural diversity of glycans in nature, and their roles in cellular processes, host-pathogen interactions, biological diversity and speciation can be explained by evolutionary processes.

Sugars are the OPERATING SYSTEM (OS) of the body, processing DNA data, thought, and all cellular communication. Glycomics, the science of sugars, may be thousands of times more complex than the genome project. The eight Royal Sugars used to construct glycoprotein receptor sites that coat every healthy human cell were described by Robert K. Murray, M.D., PhD, in Harper’s Biochemistry first in 19...

Glycomics, a comprehensive study of glycans expressed in biologic systems, is emerging as a simple yet highly sensitive diagnostic tool for disease onset and progression. This study aimed to use glycomics to investigate glycan markers that would differentiate patients with gastric cancer from those with nonatrophic gastritis. Patients with duodenal ulcer were also included because they are thou...

The investigation of recognition events between carbohydrates and proteins, especially the control of how spatial factors and binding avidity are correlated in, remains a great interest for glycomics. Therefore, the development of efficient methods for the rapid evaluation of new ligands such as multivalent glycoconjugates is essential for diverse diagnostic or therapeutic applications. In this...

The glycome of one of the largest and most exposed human organs, the skin, as well as glycan changes associated with non-melanoma skin cancers have not been studied in detail to date. Skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are among the most frequent types of cancers with rising incidence rates in the aging population. We investigated the healthy human...

Glycans interact with many types of proteins, as exemplified by their binding to enzymes, antibodies, and glycanbinding proteins (GBPs). Binding of glycans to proteins represents the major way in which the information contained in glycan structures is recognized, deciphered, and put into biological action. This chapter describes the structural and thermodynamic principles of glycan–GBP interact...

Carbohydrates in biological systems are often associated with specific recognition and signaling processes leading to important biological functions and diseases. Considerable efforts have been directed toward understanding and mimicking the recognition processes and developing effective agents to control the processes. The pace of discovery research in glycobiology and development of carbohydr...

Combination of bioaffinity and chromatography gave birth to affinity chromatography. A further combination with frontal analysis resulted in creation of frontal affinity chromatography (FAC). This new versatile research tool enabled detailed analysis of weak interactions that play essential roles in living systems, especially those between complex saccharides and saccharide-binding proteins. FA...

Glycobiology is emerging as a primary field of interest for biological research. As such, it is crucial to develop and improve tools for the study of sugar-modified biomolecules. Many research endeavors in the field of protein glycobiology involve boiling of proteins in sample buffer for 5-10 minutes prior to gel electrophoresis and their further characterization. Here we examined the effect of...

The Departments of Veterinary PathoBiology and Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Center for Immunology, University Minnesota Academic Health Center, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108. Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Medicine, Oklahoma Center for Medical Glycobiology and Warren Medical Research Institute, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and ...