Glycan & Glycoscience

Glycan (sugar, saccharide, or carbohydrate), also called the "3rd alphabet of life", is one of the four major macromolecular building blocks of life. Glycoscience, the study of glycan and glycosylated biomolecules, now is the new frontier in the bioscience in the post-genomic era after the completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP).

Biological Roles of Glycans

Glycans are ubiquitous in cells; they can be found in the cytosol and nucleus of eukaryotes, within the extracellular matrix, and on all cell surfaces, forming a special layer called "glycocalyx". By interaction with other cells, the cellular matrix, proteins and other molecules, these glycans are involved in molecular recognition, differentiation, development, signaling, immunoresponse, and all kinds of other physiological events. For example, blood groups are determined by the structure of glycan on the red cells. The leukocyte adhesion and turnover, as well as lymphocyte homing, are regulated by glycans. In addition, glycosaminoglycans, including heparan sulfate, have been found to regulate cell sinaling and angiogenesis, as well as blood clotting. In the case of antibody from different sources, the glycoform will influence its antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) caused by the interaction between the Fc domain of antibodies and Fc receptors, and glycoengineered therapeutic antibodies have generated great interest among researchers because of their therapeutic potential. On the other hand, accumulated evidences have shown that glycans also play important roles on the development and progression of many diseases (e.g. cancer, rheumatic arthritis, infectious diseases, and lysosome storage disorders such as Fabry disease). Some cancer cells can express some specific glycan antigen, and glycosylated a-fetoprotein (AFP-L3), as well as CA19-9, has been used as a tumor marker for early diagnosis of cancer. Meanwhile, serum sialylation changes in cancer and abnormal glycoform of Ig in the serum of rheumatic arthritis patients are often found. Seasonal influenza viruses, cause infection via cell-surface glycans. Lysosome storage diseases such as Fabry disease are caused by the defection of glycan metabolism. Thus it can be seen that glycans are involved in all kinds of physiological and pathophysiological events.

Glycans are also abundant natural products. It has been thought that the study of glcan in plants, microbes, and animals could lead to the disvoveries of glycan based new drug that can help treat and cure diseases, and aid a fundamental understanding of life.  For example, heparin, from porcine intestine mucosa, is a widely used anticoagulant and antithrombics to prevent deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary emboli in patients at risk. In addition, oseltamivir, an anti-influenza virus drug, suppress the reproduction of viruses by simulating the structure of sialic acid. All these carbohydrate based drug discovery is based on the study of glycan in natural products.

What GlycoNovo Do

As shown above, a handful of notable success in glycoscience has been achieved. However, biosynthesis of glycan is not a template driven process but a result of the complex series of enzymatic processes. And the complexity of carbohydrate chemistry makes glycoscience inaccessible to most biomedical researchers. In addition, the difficulty in synthesis or sequencing of glycans, and the defect of high quality commercialized chemical and biological reagents hinder the development of glycoscience. There is a need for new approaches, tools, and high quality reagents to advance the glycoscience.

GlycoNovo Technologies Co., Ltd. (GlycoNovo) specializes in the creation of new methodologies, the development and production of unique high quality reliable chemical and biological reagents, to better the glycoscience work, and carbohydrate-based biomarker and new drug discovery.