Cell-surface glycoconjugates as indicators of cell functions

已知细胞表面糖缀合物的结构和定位在细胞功能的变化和细胞分化过程中发生非常敏感的变化。如果这些结构变化对细胞功能变化和分化阶段的特征得到准确阐明，那么细胞表面糖缀合物的糖链结构是细胞功能或分化阶段的一个很好的指示物。在这项研究中，开发了各种新的方法来阐明细胞表面糖缀合物的极少量糖链的结构。利用这些方法，研究了不同功能T细胞亚群、不同分化阶段的鸡胚和病变组织的细胞表面糖蛋白的结构特征。这些发现可以有效地应用于细胞功能消耗和分化阶段。此外，本研究还分析了糖缀合物糖链结构变化的主导因子。

Structures and localization of cell-surface glycoconjugates are known to change very sensitively upon the change of cell functions and also during the differentiation of cells. If the characteristics of these structural changes on the change of cell functions and differentiation stages are precisely elucidated, the structure of the sugar chain of cell-surface glycoconjugate is a good indicator of the cell function or the differentiation stage. In this study, various novel methods for the elucidation of the structure of a very tiny amount of the sugar chain of cell-surface glycoconjugate were developed. Using these mothods, the structural characteristics of cell surface glycoproteins of various functional subsets of T cells, those of chicken embryos in various differentiation stages and those of diseased tissues were elucidated. These findings can be usefully applied to the persumption of cell functions and differentiation stages. Furthermore, the gones dominating structural changes of sugar chains of glycoconjugates were analyzed in this study.