Glycobiology with Vector Laboratories

Glycobiology is the study of glycans or carbohydrate structures that are ubiquitous in life. Carbohydrates are not only metabolites for energy and metabolism, but can also decorate proteins and lipids modifying their functionality.

The immune system is heavily reliant on signalling using both protein and glycan interactions, and it is the carbohydrate chains on red blood cells that are the basis of the ABO blood grouping system.

Antibodies against carbohydrates have been difficult to produce with historical methods, however nature has provided a host of glycan specific proteins, called lectins, that can be used to help further our knowledge of glycobiology, particularly in situ.

Vector Laboratories was founded by Dr James Whithead in 1976 to help fellow glycobiologists access the plant lectins they needed for their research. External QC data for their lectins can be found on the National Centre for Functional Genomics (NCFG) website.

Another way to study glycans is via metabolic click-chemistry labelled unnatural monosaccharides that are incorporated during glycosylation, and can subsequently labelled with an efficient labelling reaction. This is a useful tool for precision labelling and probing of glycosylation and is of potential interest in cancer therapies, since cancers often demonstrate aberrant glycosylation.