title: Carbohydrate engineered cells for regenerative medicine.
abstract: Carbohydrates are integral components of the stem cell niche on several levels; proteoglycans are a major constituent of the extracellular matrix (ECM) surrounding a cell, glycosoaminoglycans (GAGs) help link cells to the ECM and the neighboring cells, and small but informationally-rich oligosaccharides provide a "sugar code" that identifies each cell and provides it with unique functions. This article samples roles that glycans play in development and then describes how metabolic glycoengineering - a technique where monosaccharide analogs are introduced into the metabolic pathways of a cell and are biosynthetically incorporated into the glycocalyx - is overcoming many of the long-standing barriers to manipulating carbohydrates in living cells and tissues and is becoming an intriguing new tool for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Kevin J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Yarema
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D019276:Glycocalyx / Q000378:metabolism; D006025:Glycosaminoglycans / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D009844:Oligosaccharides / Q000378:metabolism; D011509:Proteoglycans / Q000378:metabolism; D044968:Regenerative Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D023822:Tissue Engineering / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D006025:Glycosaminoglycans; D009844:Oligosaccharides; D011509:Proteoglycans