The neoglycolipid (NGL) technology‐based microarrays and future prospects

Abstract

The neoglycolipid (NGL) technology is the basis of a state-of-the-art oligosaccharide microarray system, which we offer for screening analyses to the broad scientific community. We review here the sequential development of the technology and its power in pinpointing and isolating naturally occurring ligands for glycan-binding proteins (GBPs) within glycan populations. We highlight our Designer Array approach and Beam Search Array approach for generating natural glycome arrays to identify novel ligands of biological relevance. These two microarray approaches have been applied for assignments of ligands or antigens on glucan polysaccharides for effector proteins of the immune system (Dectin-1, DC-SIGN and DC-SIGNR) and carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs) on bacterial hydrolases. We also discuss here the more recent applications to elucidate the structure of a prostate cancer- associated antigen F77 and identify ligands for adhesins of two rotaviruses, P[10] and P[19], expressed on an epithelial mucin glycoprotein.

Glycan Microarrays as Chemical Tools for Identifying Glycan Recognition by Immune Proteins

“…Since their invention, glycan microarrays have become an essential tool in glycobiology, with increasing number and diversity of glycans and extremely small amounts of glycan consumption (Li and Feizi, 2018;Cummings, 2019). In particular, the glycan microarrays provided by NCFG and CFG not only revealed the fine binding specificities of known GBPs, they also helped in identification of novel GBPs and their novel biological activities through collaborative projects with investigators all over the world, which, altogether led to hundreds of published papers.…”

“…In addition to the covalent methods, non-covalent attachment methods have also been developed and become the foundation of another comprehensive glycan microarray platform. Feizi and colleagues attached glycans to phospholipid carriers via reductive amination or oxime ligation (Tang et al, 1985;Chai et al, 2003;Liu et al, 2007;Li and Feizi, 2018). The products, neoglycolipids (NGLs) have hydrophobic lipid tails which facilitate immobilization on hydrophobic surfaces such as nitrocellulose through non-covalent hydrophobic interaction.…”

“…Since the generation of the first NGL-based glycan microarray (Fukui et al, 2002), the number and diversity of glycans in the libraries have been steadily growing (Palma et al, 2006;Gao et al, 2014;Li et al, 2017). Now there are more than 800 probes in their sequence-defined glycan microarray, making it one of the world largest resources (Li and Feizi, 2018). One of the recent applications of the NGL-based glycan microarray is the "Beam Search" which is an activity-chasing approach.…”

Glycans Controlling Virus Infections: Meeting Report on the 1st International Symposium on Glycovirology Schöntal, Germany, 02–04 May 2018

“…Although many viruses have been known for some time to use cell-surface carbohydrates to initiate infection, our understanding of these interactions remains fragmented. Only recently, advances in glycan microarray screening technology have rapidly accelerated the identification of specific glycan receptors [ 11 ]. It is now also possible to map glycan epitopes that bind to a virus in solution using saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR spectroscopy [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ], define the atomic level structure of the virus-glycan interaction using X-ray crystallography, use virus-like particles (VLPs) or pseudoviruses (assembled virus particles that lack the correct genome and are therefore non-infectious) to analyze the determinants of recognition, and design mutations to determine the precise effect of glycan-binding in disease pathogenesis.…”

New horizons in Glycobiology research

“…In this FEBS Letters Special Issue, we present 12 Reviews, written by outstanding Scientists, covering some of the currently hottest topics in the field of Glycobiology, including stem cell regulation ; neural development and neurodegeneration ; signalling ; ganglioside metabolism ; microbe–host interaction and vaccine design ; immunology ; O‐GlcNAcylation ; and new technologies related to Glycobiology . We feel that this broad Special Issue will be instrumental for scientists interested in starting research in the field of Glycobiology or in better developing their ongoing studies.…”