Glycoprotein and Glycoforms

Glycoproteins are essential to many basic cellular and disease processes including molecular/cellular recognition, intracellular sorting, cell growth, fertilization, immune defense, inflanunation, tumor metastasis, viral replication and bacterial/parasite infection. For example, carbohydrates of glycoproteins at the manunalian cell surface have two major functions. Inside the cell, they help proteins fold and assemble correctly in the 

Mudn Proteoglycan Collagen type type type 

The microheterogeniety, i.e. consequence of multiple glycosylation sites and partial site-occupancy of a population of different oligosaccharide structures, results in a set of glycosylated variants of a common polypeptide. These glycoforms differ in the nature, number, location and sequence of oligosaccharides, which affect their properties and 

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