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By: Richard D. Cummings Glycosphingolipids (GSLs) are sphingolipids, such as ceramide, to which sugars are linked. They are found in virtually all organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals (1), and many different human and animal parasites (2). Sphingolipids were originally discovered...

By: Richard D. Cummings In the mid 1980s it was strongly believed that all glycosylated proteins arose within the secretory pathway, which generated both secreted and membrane-bound (plasma membrane) glycoproteins. This accepted process was taken to indicate that no glycosylated proteins occurred in...

By: Richard D. Cummings Among the 900-1,400 genes on the human X chromosome (1, 2) [1], there are many genes important in the metabolism of glycomolecules, including glycosyltransferases, glycohydrolases, transporters, and chaperones. Mutations in several of these X-linked genes, either heritable or...

By: Richard D. Cummings The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of many types of cells contain members of a family of UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs). These enzymes utilize uridine diphosphate glucuronic acid (UDP-GlcA) as a donor and add GlcA to a tremendous variety of aglycone hydrophobic compounds...

By: Richard D. Cummings The major urinary glycoprotein is the Tamm-Horsfall protein (THP), also named uromodulin (Umod), and encoded by UMOD (1-4). Its concentration in urine can be as high as 1-2 mg/mL. It was discovered in 1950 by Tamm and Horsfall in their studies on compounds in urine that could...

By: Richard D. Cummings We usually think of polysaccharides as being relatively inert. However, dust explosions in grain elevators and in areas of high density of corn starch or polysaccharide powders occur frequently, as corn starch powder/dust is highly flammable (1). Such dust has tremendous...

By: Richard D. Cummings Sugar alcohols are a reduced form of a sugar in which the aldehyde or ketone is replaced with an -OH, and sometimes referred to as polyols. Strictly speaking, the definition of an alcohol is an organic compound with one or more hydroxyl groups (-OH) attached to a carbon, so...

By: Richard D. Cummings Antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGPs) are named due to their unusual ability to inhibit ice formation (1). Antifreeze glycoproteins and proteins are also called ice structuring proteins or ISPs (2). AFGPs were originally discovered by DeVries and Wohlschlag in the blood of...

By: Richard D. Cummings Most, if not all, of the carbohydrates and glycans in animals are reducing glycans in their free form, either as they are generated, e.g., milk sugars, or upon release from proteins or lipids. However, there are many non-reducing sugars in nature, so far mostly found in...