Enzyme with a sugar antenna
Sunday, February 1, 2009 - 16:14
in Biology & Nature
More than half of all human proteins, as well as many important pharmaceutical agents, are glycoproteins, which means that they contain sugar components. In general, natural glycoproteins do not have a homogeneous sugar component. With modern purification techniques, it is practically impossible to isolate sufficient quantities of homogeneous glycoproteins for systematic biomedical studies. Synthesis in the lab is a good alternative—but also a very complex task. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, scientists led by Carlo Unverzagt at the University of Bayreuth (Germany) have now successfully used a new strategy to synthesize ribonuclease C (RNase C), a glycosylated bovine pancreatic enzyme.