Importance of N-glycosylation on α5β1 integrin for its biological functions

Abstract

N-Glycosylation of proteins is conserved in eukaryotes, which is one of the most abundant post-translational modification reactions, and nearly half of all known proteins in eukaryotes are glycosylated. In fact, changes in oligosaccharide structure (glycan) are associated with many physiological and pathological events, including cell adhesion, migration, cell growth, cell differentiation and tumor invasion. Glycosylation reactions are catalyzed by the action of glycosyltransferases, which add sugar chains to various glycans on glycoproteins, glycolipids and proteoglycans. Here, we focus mainly on the modification of V-glycans with N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase III (GnT-III), V-acetylglucosaminyltransferase V (GnT-V) and α2,6 sialyltransferase (ST6GalI) to address the important roles of V-glycans in integrin-meditaed cell adhesion and migration. In addition, we also discuss the potential roles of V-glycosylation sites on integrin α5 subunit. © 2009 Pharmaceutical Society of Japan.