Study of the biological functions of mucin type core 3 o-glycans

Abstract

Core 3 O-glycan is very short glycan structure which is composed of one N-acetylglucosamine and one N-acetylgalactosamine. The core 3 O-glycan structure is synthesized by core3 synthase (beta 1, 3-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase 6) using UDP-N-acetylglucosamine as substrate. We revealed that the core 3 O-glycan structure modulates prostate cancer formation and gastrointestinal cell differentiation through regulating the heterodimerization of α2β1 integrin [1, 2] and cell surface expression of differentiation marker proteins [3] respectively. This chapter describes the way to determine the functions of core 3 O-glycan in tumor formation and gastrointestinal cell differentiation. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013.