GlycoBioinformatics

• Kiyoko F. Aoki-Kinoshita,
• Frédérique Lisacek,
• Niclas Karlsson,
• Daniel Kolarich and
• Nicolle H. Packer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 2726–2728, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.184

• ] suggests a new concept of glycoblocks, which are subunits of 3D glycan structures. This concept may become useful in describing specific epitopes and functional units of glycans. With the recent pandemic experience, the need for glycobioinformatics for global health was highlighted, where the laboratory of

How and why plants and human N-glycans are different: Insight from molecular dynamics into the “glycoblocks” architecture of complex carbohydrates

• Carl A. Fogarty,
• Aoife M. Harbison,
• Amy R. Dugdale and
• Elisa Fadda

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 2046–2056, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.171

• monosaccharides. We define these “glycoblocks” as self-contained 3D units, uniquely identified by the nature of the residues they comprise, their linkages and structural/dynamic features. This alternative description of glycans’ 3D architecture can potentially lead to an easier prediction of sequence-to-structure

• relationships in complex carbohydrates, with important implications in glycoengineering design. Keywords: complex carbohydrates; fucose; glycoblocks; molecular dynamics; molecular recognition; N-glycans; xylose; Introduction Complex carbohydrates (or glycans) are an essential class of biomolecules, directly

• different N-glycoforms can be represented as a combination of spatial self-contained units, named “glycoblocks”, rather than in terms of monosaccharides and linkages. We find that this approach helps our understanding of N-glycans architecture in terms of equilibrium structures and relative populations and