The Archaeplastida consists of three lineages, Rhodophyta, Virideplantae and Glaucophyta. The extracellular matrix of most members of the Rhodophyta and Viridiplantae consists of carbohydrate-based or a highly glycosylated protein-based cell wall while the Glaucophyte covering is poorly resolved. In order to elucidate possible evolutionary links between the three advanced lineages in Archaeplas...

The essential process of peptidoglycan synthesis requires two enzymatic activities, transpeptidation and transglycosylation. While the PBP2 and PBP3 transpeptidases perform highly specialized functions that are widely conserved, the specific roles of different glycosyltransferases are poorly understood. For example, Caulobacter crescentus encodes six glycosyltransferase paralogs of largely unkn...

The occurrence of a potent antibody against plasmatic A and B glycosyltransferase activities has been characterized in a patient (blood group A1) transplanted with a bone marrow from a blood group O donor. A and B glycosyltransferases were purified to near homogeneity from plasma of A1 and B blood-group individuals. The half-maximal inhibition of both enzymes was obtained at 1 to 2 micrograms/m...

Copyright: © 2013 Sun XL. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Glycoconjugates, existing as glycoproteins, glycolipids and proteoglycans on cell surface, are involved in many biological processes, s...

Whether hydrolytic or synthetic, glycosyl transfer is, simply in terms of quantity, one of the most important biological reactions on earth. The formation and cleavage of glycosidic bonds are catalysed by glycosyltransferases and glycoside hydrolases which are crucial for a number of biological pathways (biosynthesis and degradation of structural and storage polysaccharides, cellular signalling...