Protein glycosylation lessons from Caenorhabditis elegans.
From observations on human diseases and mutant mice, it has become clear that glycosylation plays a major role in metazoan development. Caenorhabditis elegans provides powerful tools to study this problem that are not available in men or mice. The worm has many genes homologous to mammalian genes involved in glycosylation. Glycobiologists have, in recent years, cloned and expressed some of these genes and studied the effects of mutations on worm development. Recent studies have focused on N-glycosylation, lumenal nucleoside diphosphatases, the resistance of C. elegans to a bacterial toxin and infections, fucosylation and proteoglycans.
Schachter
Harry
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Program in Structural Biology and Biochemistry, Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1X8, Canada. harry@sickkids.on.ca
D017766:Acid Anhydride Hydrolases / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000276:immunology; D001427:Bacterial Toxins / Q000633:toxicity; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000187:drug effects / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000382:microbiology; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D005643:Fucose / Q000378:metabolism; D006031:Glycosylation; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000096:biosynthesis; D014714:Vertebrates
D001427:Bacterial Toxins; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D011134:Polysaccharides; D005643:Fucose; D017766:Acid Anhydride Hydrolases; C023837:nucleoside-diphosphatase