Glycoproteins

Site-selective chemical methods for homogeneous protein glycosylation

What you'll learn

Understand that protein glycosylation is a "sweet" refinement of the biological information

Ways to access homogeneously glycosylated proteins for robust glyco-biology studies

Chemical synthesis of glycoproteins and engineering glycosylation pathways

Direct enzymatic protein glycosylation and glycoprotein remodeling

Site-selective chemical strategies for the biological investigation of glycoproteins

How to obtain a site-selectively glycosylated protein (practical example)

Requirements

Good organic chemistry and biochemistry knowledge is required

Description

This course provides a brief overview of the key methods used to obtain homogeneous glycoproteins and mimics of thereof.It first describes this type of large biomolecules called glycoproteins, their structure and their essential roles in diverse biological processes. It emphasizes the importance of homogeneously glycosylated proteins in glyco-biology studies, where precise and consistent glycoforms are crucial for understanding glycoprotein functions.The course covers various methods to access homogeneous glycoforms, beginning with total chemical synthesis and the engineering of glycosylation pathways. It then explores the direct enzymatic protein glycosylation and glycoprotein remodeling as key techniques used to manipulate glycoproteins.You will also learn about site-selective chemical strategies, that either make use of a cysteine-derived chemical handle or of an unnatural amino acid tag inserted in the protein backbone. The cysteine incorporation is achieved via site-directed mutagenesis whereas unnatural amino acids can be introduced using the sense or nonsense reassignment methods. These approaches expand the toolkit available for site-selective protein-glycan ligation strategies.The course concludes with a practical lab example, demonstrating the site-selective glycosylation of a protein, tying theory to real-world application.By the end, you will hopefully have a good understanding of both theoretical concepts and practical methods used in glycoprotein chemical biology.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Insights into the world of glycoproteins (GPs)

Lecture 2 Chemical synthesis of GPs & engineering of glycosylation pathways

Lecture 3 Direct enzymatic protein glycosylation and glycoprotein remodeling

Lecture 4 Site-selective strategies: cysteine amino acid incorporation

Lecture 5 Site-selective strategies: unnatural amino acid incorporation

Lecture 6 Practical example : obtain a site-selectively glycosylated protein in the lab

students and other people curious about chemical biology, glycoproteins and bioconjugation,Example: Chemistry, Biology, Pharmacy and Med School students,employees of biotech/pharma/life sciences companies that want to explore the topic