Defined in the broadest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biosynthesis, and

biology of saccharides (sugar chains or glycans) that are widely distributed in nature.[1]
[2]
Sugars or saccharides are essential components of all living things and aspects of the
various different roles they play in biology are researched in various different medical,
biochemical and biotechnological fields.

Contents
[hide]

 1 History
 2 Glycoconjugates
 3 Glycomics
 4 Difficulties in the study of sugar structures
 5 Modern Tools and Techniques for Glycan Structure Prediction
 6 Software for MS Data Interpretation
 7 References
 8 External links

[edit] History
The specific term glycobiology was coined in 1988 to recognize the coming together of the
traditional disciplines of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry.[3] This coming together
was as a result of a much greater understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of
glycans. However as early as the late nineteenth century pioneering efforts were being made
by Emil Fisher to establish the structure of some basic sugar molecules.

[edit] Glycoconjugates
Sugars may be linked to other types of biological molecule to form glycoconjugates. The
enzymatic process of glycosylation creates sugars/saccharides linked to themselves and to
other molecules by the glycosidic bond, thereby producing glycans. Glycoproteins,
proteoglycans and glycolipids are the most abundant glycoconjugates found in mammalian
cells. They are found predominantly on the outer cell wall and in secreted fluids.
Glycoconjugates have been shown to be important in cell-cell interactions due to the presence
on the cell surface of various glycan binding receptors in addition to the glycoconjugates
themselves.[4][5]

[edit] Glycomics
Main article: Glycomics

"Glycomics, analogous to genomics and proteomics, is the systematic study of all glycan
structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of glycobiology.[6]

[edit] Difficulties in the study of sugar structures

Part of the variability seen in saccharide structures is because monosaccharide units may be
coupled to each other in many different ways, as opposed to the amino acids of proteins or
the nucleotides in DNA, which are always coupled together in a standard fashion.[7] The study
of glycan structures is also complicated by the lack of a direct template for their biosynthesis,
contrary to the case with proteins where their amino acid sequence is determined by their
corresponding gene[8].

Glycans are also secondary gene products and as such are generated by the coordinated action
of many enzymes in the subcellular compartments of a cell. Thus, the structure of a glycan
may depend on the expression, activity and accessibility of the different biosynthetic
enzymes. This means it is not possible to use recombinant DNA technology in order to
produce large quantities of glycans for structural and functional studies as has been used
extensively for protein studies.

[edit] Modern Tools and Techniques for Glycan Structure

Prediction
Accurate machines and advanced software programs when used in combination can unlock
the mystery of glycan structures elucidation. One such technique is Mass Spectrometry which
uses three principle units which are the ionizer, analyzer and detector . Fast Atom
Bombardment (FAB) mass spectrometers is a powerful tool for characterizing the complex
carbohydrates. this technique can be coupled with sensitive array detector technology.

[edit] Software for MS Data Interpretation

Mass Spectrometry data needs visualization since glycan structures and their 3 D
configuration. Some free and commercial software products make this task easy for
glycobiologists. Here are some of them:
1. SimGlycan® - It predicts the structure of glycans and glycopeptides using mass
spectrometry data. SimGlycan® accepts the experimental MS/MS data generated by a mass
spectrometer, matches them with its own database of theoretical fragments and generates a
list of probable candidate structures.
2. GlycoWorkbench - This software matches fragments to experimental peaks list. It also has
a visual editor for building glycan structures [9].
3. OSCAR - De novo analysis of permethylated glycans. Accepts one or more disassembly
pathways and produces structures consistent with them.