O-glycan structures of gastropods

O-glycosylation of proteins is an emerging field in glycobiology research. More and more this kind of posttranslational modification of proteins is found to be essential for the correct transport and function of the proteins and involved in important recognition processes. For a complete understanding of the function and biosynthesis of this structural modification not only vertebrate but also invertebrate organisms have to be investigated for their O-glycosylation potential. As snails take part as an intermediate host in some developmental cycles of human and cattle parasites their glycosylation abilities are extremely interesting for the better understanding of host-parasite recognition processes. In this project we will elucidate the O-glycans of a number of gastropods (land and water snails with or without shell). A new strategy for O-glycosylation analysis has to be established in order to make sure that all possible linkages between sugar and amino acids are cleaved and the glycans can be labelled for further separation and analysis. For the N-glycans it has been already shown that the snails are capable to produce structural elements ranging from those typical in man through to structures similar to those found in schistosomes and therefore will be a valuable model to understand the regulation of glycosylation. For the O-glycans there are already some hints that the spectrum may be similar impressive.