| Glycosylation processes play an important role in a living system. Carbohydrates are an essential component of life as structural and energy storage component, as stabilisation, recognition, signalling and communication agents. Most proteins on cell surfaces and in the extracellular spaces, are co- and post-translationally modified and they often gain carbohydrate side chains, whether N- or O-linked. Also lipids can be glycosylated to form glycolipids, which are integral components of biological membranes. Running projects are focused on structure-function studies of proteins, which participate on oligosaccharide synthesis (glycosyltransferases) both from prokaryotic and eukaryotic origin. General aim of the project is a genomic structural approach that allows us to follow direction "from a gene to a structure-functional characterization". Bioinformatic tools are used for targeting and comparison studies of potential glycosyltransferases followed by applying of molecular biology methods for overexpression of selected glycosyltransferases in a host organism enabling scale-up production of selected enzymes. This would allow their further studies. Procaryotic enzymes are represented by mycobacterial glycosyltransferases involved in biosynthesis of an unusual and well-organized structure of the mycobacterial cell wall that shows an abnormally low degree of the hydrophilic permeability. It contains numerous carbohydrate components that are presumed to be required for cell viability and survival in the host and as such they play crucial roles in the interactions of pathogenic species with their host. Thus, enzymes synthesizing the mycobacterial cell wall are potential and attractive targets for the rational design of novel chemotherapeutic agents against M. tuberculosis. In parallel, we have been focusing on some selected of glycosyltransferases from higher organisms that have an implication for example in development and morphogenesis, concentrating on larger-scale expression and purification of these enzymes for structure studies. |
