Polysialic Acid and Oligo-Poly KDN Structures

IDENTIFICATION OF POLYSIALIC ACID AND OLIGO-POLY KDN STRUCTURES 

A Methods in Enzymology chapter has recently been published that describes in detail the strategies, reagents, and methods to detect, analyze, and modify the polySia and polyKDN glycotopes (Ye et al., 1994). Accordingly, only a brief summary of these strategies and methods will be reviewed, and the interested reader should consult the above reference for specific details. 

General Strategy Immunochemical Detection Using Anti-Polysialic Acid and Anti-KDN Antibodies 

A number of anti-polySia antibodies have now been made that specifically recognize the a2,8-polySia glycotope. A monoclonal IgG2a, designated mAb735, was produced by Bitter-Suermann and colleagues (Frosch et al., 1985). mAb735 has been widely used as a primary antibody to detect polySia, principally by 

The continued development of antibodies and specific glycosidases (e.g., Endo-N and KDNases) will surely broaden our repertoire of reagents to identify new classes of polySia chains. It is important to recognize, however, that positive immunoreactivity must be confirmed by pretreatment with a specific gly-cosidase (Endo-N KDNase) and rigorous chemical, biochemical, and physical methods. Some of these have been described (Ye et aL, 1994). 

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