title: Metabolic selection of glycosylation defects in human cells.
abstract: Changes in glycosylation are often associated with disease progression, but the genetic and metabolic basis of these events is rarely understood in detail at a molecular level. We describe a metabolism-based approach to the selection of mutants in glycoconjugate biosynthesis that provides insight into regulatory mechanisms for oligosaccharide expression and metabolic flux. Unnatural intermediates are used to challenge a specific pathway, and cell surface expression of their metabolic products provides a readout of flux in that pathway and a basis for selecting genetic mutants. The approach was applied to the sialic acid metabolic pathway in human cells, yielding novel mutants with phenotypes related to the inborn metabolic defect sialuria and metastatic tumor cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors.forename: K J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Yarema
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goon
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Bertozzi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D002240:Carbohydrate Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000378:metabolism; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D005944:Glucosamine / Q000378:metabolism; D006031:Glycosylation; D006595:Hexosamines / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D019169:Jurkat Cells; D037102:Lectins / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D019158:N-Acetylneuraminic Acid / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000652:urine; D010641:Phenotype; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014162:Transfection; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D006595:Hexosamines; D037102:Lectins; C105871:N-levulinoyl mannosamine; D019158:N-Acetylneuraminic Acid; D005944:Glucosamine