Cell surface glycoconjugates and adhesion molecules

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The cellular recognition involved in a variety of pathological processes such as, inflammation, tissue reorganization, vascular injury, angiogenesis, and metastasis of tumor cells is mediated by carbohydrate-protein interactions. To understand these processes, the structure and the function of cell surface glycoconjugates and lectins should be elucidated. In the present project, we focused on the following specific aims and made interesting observasions : (1)The structure and the function of macrophage galactose/N-acetylgalactosamine-specific lectins. We concluded that the carbohydrate specificity of this lectin towards Tn-antigen and highly branched N-linked carbohydrate chains were suitable to distinguish tumor cell surfaces from non-malignant cell surfaces. (2)We found that sialyl-Le^x carbohydrate chains linked to serine and/or threonine were responsible for the platelet-induced superoxide anion production. (3) We purified an N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase involved in the formation of poly-N-acetyllactosamine-type carbohydrate chains.