Structures and Functions of the Sugar Chains of Glycoproteins

Abstract

Most proteins within living organisms contain sugar chains. Recent advancement of cell biology has revealed that many of these sugar chains play important roles as signals for cell surface recognition phenomena in multi-cellular organisms. Based on an idea to elucidate the biological informations included in the sugar chains and introduce them as knowledge of biology, a novel scientific field called “glycobiology” was established. This review will give an outline of the structural characteristics and biosynthetic mechanism of the Asn-linked sugar chains of glycoproteins. Based on these knowledges, functional aspects of the sugar chains in the immune system of mammals, and of those of human chorionic gonadotropin will be described in order to help readers to access this new scientific field. © 1992, The Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan. All rights reserved.