PRESS RELEASES
Please quote Nature Chemical Biology as the source of these items.
The September 2006 issue of Nature Chemical Biology is available online.
September 2006
Sulfation code for sugar chains
pp 467 - 473The importance of specific sugar chains in determining the function of neuronal growth factors is revealed in a study in the September issue of Nature Chemical Biology
The role of particular sugar chains known as glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) has been elusive because they have such complex patterns. Gama and colleagues combine synthetic chemistry and microarrays with functional studies to show the existence of what they call a "sulfation code". Comparing a number of computationally chosen GAG sugars, the authors found that the level of binding to two neuronal growth factors was dictated by the sequence and structure of the sugar. The GAGs best able to bind to the growth factors were the same as those that could promote the growth and development of neurons.
Much like the genetic code translates into functional information about proteins, the sulfation code translates into functional information about sugars.
Sulfation patterns of glycosaminoglycans encode molecular recognition and activity
pp 467 - 473Cristal I Gama, Sarah E Tully, Naoki Sotogaku, Peter M Clark, Manish Rawat, Nagarajan Vaidehi, William A Goddard, III, Akinori Nishi and Linda C Hsieh-Wilson
Published online: 30 July 2006 | doi 10.1038/nchembio810
