Glycosylation is a reaction where carbohydrates are attached to an acceptor molecule via glycosyltransferase. Here in this paper people have screened for high energy glycoside donors which form NDP-sugar and these sugar nucleotides acts as a driving force to catalyze glycosyltransferase reaction. It was interesting how they used a synthetic glycoside donor molecule to shift the catalytic reaction based on thermodynamics.
This is an excellent paper from the Thorson lab, where Dr. Williams worked before he came here. GTs promiscuous to donor substrates can provide easy access to nucleotide diphosphate sugars from an easily synthesized glycoside.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the use of high energy substrates (as done in this paper) could allow for other biomolecules to be more easily synthesized.
ReplyDeleteYou could imagine doing the same thing with any reversible group transfer enzyme. This is a particularly great example because UDP sugars aren't trivial to synthesize, but the high energy glycoside they made was simple.
ReplyDeleteOther group transfer enzymes don't catalyze reactions that are so closely poised to unity in terms of equilibrium. I think glycosyltransfer is quite a unique case...
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