earticle

영어

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are unbranched, polydisperse, acidic polysaccharides, often covalently linked to a protein core to form proteoglycans (PGs). The most common GAGs are heparin, heparan sulfate (HS), hyaluronic acid (HA), chondroitin sulfate (CS), dermatan sulfate (DS), and keratan sulfate (KS). Heparin, an anticoagulant isolated from animal tissue, is an important and chemically unique polysaccharide of considerable biological significance. In order to understand the complicated structure of GAGs, GAG lyases from microorganisms have been widely used and their reaction products were analyzed using various HPLC methods. We have cloned and expressed GAG lyases of Bacteroides thetaitaomicron in E.coli. In collaboration with Dr Mirek Cygler’s group, the tertiary structures of recombinant chondroitinases ABC and heparinase have been solved. These things will be presented. Acharan sulfate (AS), isolated from the giant African snail Achatina fulica, primarily consists of the repeating disaccharide structure a-D-N-acetylglucosaminyl (1→4) 2-sulfoiduronic acid. Its structure is related to heparin and heparan sulfate but is distinctly different from all known members of these classes of glycosaminoglycans. Because of its structural similarities to heparin, a diverse array of biological activities and functions have been studied. Because of its high molecular weight and copper binding affinity, specific proteins in the plasma could be purified by affinity chromatography.