Saccharides on the cell surfaces play important roles in the living systems. For example, it mediate the cell-cell adhesion, fertilization, protein transportation, infection of pathogens and cancer metastasis etc [1, 2]. The saccharide-protein interactions also involve the various biological events (Table 1). Actualy, the saccharides are the model compounds of some of the medicines like oseltam...

In recent report (Nature Biotechnology 2000, 16:321-325) we presented a new approach for obtaining high resolution in vivo images of gene expression using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We prepared MRI contrast agents in which the access of water to the fust coordination sphere of a chelated paramagnetic ion is blocked with a galactopyranose residue that can he cleaved by beta-galactosidase,...

A 21-mer oligodeoxynucleotide complementary to the polyadenylation signal for human hepatitis B virus (HBV) was complexed to a soluble DNA-carrier system that is targetable to hepatocytes via asialoglycoprotein receptors present on those cells. A cell line, HepG2 (2.2.15) that possesses asialoglycoprotein receptors and is permanently transfected with hepatitis B virus (ayw subtype) was exposed ...

Introduction Alcoholic liver injury is a significant medical problem throughout the world. Protein trafficking pathways, including endocytosis, appear to be especially susceptible to the deleterious effects of alcohol. Using the asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR) as a model, we have studied ethanol-induced alterations in the process of receptormediated endocytosis (RME). The ASGPR, a hepatocyt...