Understanding bacterical protein mannosylation

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Glycoproteins play a central role in cellular communication throughout biology. The presence of a specialized carbohydrate modification, protein O-mannosylation, is essential in humans, implicated in pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and found in a large number of other related bacteria where its function is unknown. These other bacteria possess a number of unique metabolic activities that are used in biotechnology (antibiotic production, degradation of pollutants, and enzymes for bio-fuel production to name a few). The presence of common protein glycosylation system in these important bacteria implies an important biological function which we seek to discover. Understanding the roles of this specialized protein modification could lead to manipulation of this modification to enhance the production and secretion of other enzymes for biomass degradation, pollutant degradation, or production of other bio-products.