Fucosyltransferases, carbohydrate

After preparation of this review, an abstract by Godde A, Kragl U, Biselli M, Katapodis A, Bowen BR, Ernst B, Wandrey C, was published on the XVIIIth International Carbohydrate Symposium, July 21-26, 1996, Milano, Italy (BP 135, p 390). It reports the large-scale production of 1800 units of a recombinant human al-3 fucosyltransferase (FucT VI, EC. 2.4.1.152) in its soluble form with a CHO cell line in a continuous fermentation process in a fluidized bed reactor (34mUmg 1 in culture supernatant). After partial purification the specific activity yielded 220 mU mg ... 

Bryan MC, Lee LV, Wong CH. High-throughput identification of fucosyltransferase inhibitors using carbohydrate microarrays. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2004 14 3185-3188. 

The starting hypothesis that amphibian egg jellies could be a good source of carbohydrates has been shown to be correct. Moreover, the tissues of the animals and in particular the oviducts could also be the source of new and specific glycosyltransferases. The structures listed in Figs. 1-8 allow us to speculate about the activity levels and specificities of transferases in the glycosylation process of oviducal mucins. In fact, referring only to the fucosyltransferase activities, a minimum of six enzymes such as Kdn (al-4)FucT, Fuc(al-4)Kdn (al-2)FucT, Fuc(al-4)Kdn (al-3)FucT, Kdn (al-... 

Recently, however, several such assays have been developed for the study of carbohydrate-enzyme interactions. As mentioned previously, carbohydrate microarrays can be employed for inhibitor identification. Indeed, they were recently used by Wong and coworkers to identify fucosyltransferase inhibitors from a small library (85 compounds) of triazole-containing compounds [46,... 

K. Sasaki, K. Kurata, K. Funayama, M. Nagata, E. Watanabe, S. Ohta, N. Hanai, T. Nishi, Expression cloning of a novel alpha 1,3-fucosyltransferase that is involved in biosynthesis of the sialyl Lewis x carbohydrate determinants in leukocytes, J Biol Chem, (1994), 269, 14730-7. 

M. Du, O. Hindsgaul, Recognition of beta-D-Gal p-(1 3)-beta-D-Glc pNAc-OR acceptor analogues by the Lewis alpha-(l— 3/4)-fucosyltransferase from human milk, Carbohydr Res, (1996), 286, 87 105. 

The biological functions of the complex carbohydrates of parasites are not clearly understood. The molecular cloning and characterization of a fucosyltransferase of Schistosoma mansioni [49] with a DNA sequence similarity of 85% and 64% to mouse and human fucosyltransferase type VII have been reported [49], The parasite al,3FucT is capable of synthesizing the SALe determinant, but not the Le in CHO cells. 

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