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Glycobiology
Defined in the narrowest sense, glycobiology is the study of the structure, biosynthesis, and biology of saccharides ( sugar chains or glycans) that are widely distributed in nature. Sugars or saccharides are essential components of all living things and aspects of the various roles they play in biology are researched in various medical, biochemical and biotechnological fields. History According to ''Oxford English Dictionary'' the specific term ''glycobiology'' was coined in 1988 by Prof. Raymond Dwek to recognize the coming together of the traditional disciplines of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry. This coming together was as a result of a much greater understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of glycans. However, as early as the late nineteenth century pioneering efforts were being made by Emil Fisher to establish the structure of some basic sugar molecules. Each year the Society of Glycobiology awards the Rosalind Kornfeld award for lifetime achievement in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rosalind Kornfeld
Rosalind Hauk Kornfeld (1935–2007) was a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis known for her research determining the structure and formation of oligosaccharides. The Society of Glycobiology annually awards a lifetime achievement award in her honor. Education and career Rosalind Kornfeld Hauk was born in Dallas, Texas and then grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She earned a bachelor of science degree from George Washington University in 1957. She went on to receive her Ph.D. degree in 1961 working on enzymes in rabbit muscles. For a brief period she stayed at George Washington University as a postdoctoral investigator before moving to the National Institutes of Health as a fellow working with Victor Ginsburg. She moved back to St. Louis in 1965 when she accepted a position at Washington University in St. Louis. She started as a research instructor, was promoted to research assistant professor in 1971, and then research associate professor in 1978. In 1981 she was na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glycan-protein Interactions
Glycan-Protein interactions represent a class of biomolecular interactions that occur between free or protein-bound glycans and their cognate binding partners. Intramolecular glycan-protein (protein-glycan) interactions occur between glycans and proteins that they are covalently attached to. Together with protein-protein interactions, they form a mechanistic basis for many essential cell processes, especially for cell-cell interactions and host-cell interactions. For instance, SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, employs its extensively glycosylated spike (S) protein to bind to the ACE2 receptor, allowing it to enter host cells. The spike protein is a trimeric structure, with each subunit containing 22 N-glycosylation sites, making it an attractive target for vaccine search. Glycosilation, i.e., the addition of glycans (a generic name for monosaccharides and oligosaccharides) to a protein, is one of the major post-translational modification of proteins contributing to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glycomics
Glycomics is the comprehensive study of glycomes (the entire complement of sugars, whether free or present in more complex molecules of an organism), including genetic, physiologic, pathologic, and other aspects. Glycomics "is the systematic study of all glycan structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of glycobiology. The term glycomics is derived from the chemical prefix for sweetness or a sugar, "glyco-", and was formed to follow the ''omics'' naming convention established by genomics (which deals with genes) and proteomics (which deals with proteins). Challenges *The complexity of sugars: regarding their structures, they are not linear instead they are highly branched. Moreover, glycans can be modified (modified sugars), this increases its complexity. *Complex biosynthetic pathways for glycans. *Usually glycans are found either bound to protein (glycoprotein) or conjugated with lipids (glycolipids). *Unlike genomes, glycans are highly dynamic. This area of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Dwek
Raymond Allen Dwek CBE FRS FRSC (born 10 November 1941) is a scientist at the University of Oxford and co-founder of the biotechnology company Oxford GlycoSciences Ltd., Biography Dwek was educated at Carmel College, and the University of Manchester, where he studied chemistry (1960–64). He then went to Oxford University and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he completed his DPhil in physical chemistry in 1966. He became Professor of Glycobiology in 1988 in the Department of Biochemistry. He is an emeritus fellow of Exeter College, Oxford and co-director of the Oxford Glycobiology Institute, which he founded in 1991. From 2000 to 2006 he was also head of the Department of Biochemistry. He was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute from 2007 to 2015 and an Institute Professor there in 2008. Dwek was President of the Institute of Biology 2008–10, overseeing the merger with the UK Science Federation to form the Royal Society of Biology ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and metabolism. Over the last decades of the 20th century, biochemistry has become successful at explaining living processes through these three disciplines. Almost all areas of the life sciences are being uncovered and developed through biochemical methodology and research. Voet (2005), p. 3. Biochemistry focuses on understanding the chemical basis which allows biological molecules to give rise to the processes that occur within living cells and between cells, Karp (2009), p. 2. in turn relating greatly to the understanding of tissues and organs, as well as organism structure and function.Miller (2012). p. 62. Biochemistry is closely related to molecular biology, which is the study of the molecular mechanisms of biological phenomena.Ast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glycoprotein
Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known as glycosylation. Secreted extracellular proteins are often glycosylated. In proteins that have segments extending extracellularly, the extracellular segments are also often glycosylated. Glycoproteins are also often important integral membrane proteins, where they play a role in cell–cell interactions. It is important to distinguish endoplasmic reticulum-based glycosylation of the secretory system from reversible cytosolic-nuclear glycosylation. Glycoproteins of the cytosol and nucleus can be modified through the reversible addition of a single GlcNAc residue that is considered reciprocal to phosphorylation and the functions of these are likely to be an additional regulatory mechanism that controls phosphorylation-based signalling. In contra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, responding to stimuli, providing structure to cells and organisms, and transporting molecules from one location to another. Proteins differ from one another primarily in their sequence of amino acids, which is dictated by the nucleotide sequence of their genes, and which usually results in protein folding into a specific 3D structure that determines its activity. A linear chain of amino acid residues is called a polypeptide. A protein contains at least one long polypeptide. Short polypeptides, containing less than 20–30 residues, are rarely considered to be proteins and are commonly called peptides. The individual amino acid residues are bonded together by peptide bonds and adjacent amino acid residues. The sequence of amino acid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nucleotide
Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules within all life-forms on Earth. Nucleotides are obtained in the diet and are also synthesized from common nutrients by the liver. Nucleotides are composed of three subunit molecules: a nucleobase, a five-carbon sugar ( ribose or deoxyribose), and a phosphate group consisting of one to three phosphates. The four nucleobases in DNA are guanine, adenine, cytosine and thymine; in RNA, uracil is used in place of thymine. Nucleotides also play a central role in metabolism at a fundamental, cellular level. They provide chemical energy—in the form of the nucleoside triphosphates, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), guanosine triphosphate (GTP), cytidine triphosphate (CTP) and uridine triphosphate (UTP)—throughout the cell for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity and the molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protein-coding genes and noncoding genes. During gene expression, the DNA is first copied into RNA. The RNA can be directly functional or be the intermediate template for a protein that performs a function. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits. These genes make up different DNA sequences called genotypes. Genotypes along with environmental and developmental factors determine what the phenotypes will be. Most biological traits are under the influence of polygenes (many different genes) as well as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Expression
Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. These products are often proteins, but in non-protein-coding genes such as transfer RNA (tRNA) and small nuclear RNA (snRNA), the product is a functional non-coding RNA. Gene expression is summarized in the central dogma of molecular biology first formulated by Francis Crick in 1958, further developed in his 1970 article, and expanded by the subsequent discoveries of reverse transcription and RNA replication. The process of gene expression is used by all known life— eukaryotes (including multicellular organisms), prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), and utilized by viruses—to generate the macromolecular machinery for life. In genetics, gene expression is the most fundamental level at which the genotype gives rise to the phenot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA (rDNA) molecules are DNA molecules formed by laboratory methods of genetic recombination (such as molecular cloning) that bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be found in the genome. Recombinant DNA is the general name for a piece of DNA that has been created by combining at least two fragments from two different sources. Recombinant DNA is possible because DNA molecules from all organisms share the same chemical structure, and differ only in the nucleotide sequence within that identical overall structure. Recombinant DNA molecules are sometimes called chimeric DNA, because they can be made of material from two different species, like the mythical chimera. R-DNA technology uses palindromic sequences and leads to the production of sticky and blunt ends. The DNA sequences used in the construction of recombinant DNA molecules can originate from any species. For example, plant DNA may be joined to ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monosaccharide
Monosaccharides (from Greek '' monos'': single, '' sacchar'': sugar), also called simple sugars, are the simplest forms of sugar and the most basic units (monomers) from which all carbohydrates are built. They are usually colorless, water- soluble, and crystalline solids. Contrary to their name (sugars), only some monosaccharides have a sweet taste. Most monosaccharides have the formula (though not all molecules with this formula are monosaccharides). Examples of monosaccharides include glucose (dextrose), fructose (levulose), and galactose. Monosaccharides are the building blocks of disaccharides (such as sucrose and lactose) and polysaccharides (such as cellulose and starch). The table sugar used in everyday vernacular is itself a disaccharide sucrose comprising one molecule of each of the two monosaccharides D-glucose and D-fructose. Each carbon atom that supports a hydroxyl group is chiral, except those at the end of the chain. This gives rise to a number of isome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
