Fucosylation is often the final process in glycan biosynthesis. The resulting glycans are involved in a variety of biological processes, such as cell adhesion, inflammation, or tumor metastasis. Fucosyltransferases catalyze the transfer of fucose residues from the activated donor molecule GDP‐β‐L‐fucose to various acceptor molecules. However, detailed information about the reaction processes is still lacking for most fucosyltransferases. In this work we have monitored α1,3‐fucosyltransferase activity. For both donor and acceptor substrates, the introduction of a fluorescent ATTO dye was the last step in the synthesis. The subsequent conversion of these substrates into fluorescently labeled products by α1,3‐fucosyltransferases was examined by high‐performance thin‐layer chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry as well as dual‐color fluorescence cross‐correlation spectroscopy, which revealed that both fluorescently labeled donor GDP‐β‐L‐fucose‐ATTO 550 and acceptor N‐acetyllactosamine‐ATTO 647N were accepted by recombinant human fucosyltransferase IX and Helicobacter pylori α1,3‐fucosyltransferase, respectively. Analysis by fluorescence cross‐correlation spectroscopy allowed a quick and versatile estimation of the progress of the enzymatic reaction and therefore this method can be used as an alternative method for investigating fucosyltransferase reactions.

Human α1,3-fucosyltransferase IX catalyzes the transfer of l-fucose from guanosine diphosphate-β-L-fucose to N-acetyllactosamine, generating a Lewis X epitope, and is thereby involved in the synthesis of fucosylated cell surface glycoconjugates. It contains three putative N-glycosylation sites (Asn62, Asn101 and Asn153). The current study considers the functional role of these potential N-glycosylations within the enzyme. We produced truncated variants of human fucosyltransferase IX containing the soluble extracellular catalytic domain. To analyze the relevance of each N-glycosylation site, several genomic mutant DNAs encoding a glutamine (Gln/Q) instead of the asparagine residue were created prosperously using site-directed mutagenesis and subsequently expressed in Spodoptera frugiperda cells applying a baculovirus expression system. After production and purification of these variants of human FucT IX, the wild-type (wt) enzyme and the variants were characterized regarding their activity and kinetic properties. The variants showed lower activity than the wt FucT, whereas the individual N-glycosylation sites had different effects on the enzyme activity and kinetic parameters. While the single variant N62Q still showed ∼60% of wt activity and N101Q retained ∼30% activity, replacement of Asn153 by glutamine led to an almost complete loss of enzymatic activity. The same could be observed for variants missing two or more putative N-glycosylation sites, which indicated the importance of N-glycosylation for enzyme stability and activity.

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Fucose-containing glycans mediate a variety of biological processes, but there is little information on reaction processes and mechanisms mediated by fucosyltransferases. We recently reported on fluorescently labeled GDP-β-L-fucose-ATTO 550, which enabled monitoring of α1,3-fucosyltransferase activity. Here we present an extension to the previously described results, based on the synthesis of a fluorescein-isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled and two carboxyfluorescein-labeled (FAM-labeled) NDP-β-L-fucose derivatives, and applied all four compounds in labeling of different glycoproteins with the aid of four different fucosyltransferases. The labeling processes were analyzed by in-gel fluorescence and fluorescence polarization measurements. Comparison with the ATTO-labeled sugar revealed that the FITC-labeled fucose was the best of these substrates, and that the bacterial enzyme HP-FucT tolerated the fluorescent substrates better than human fucosyltransferases.