Novel Glyco-tools to Study Human Milk Oligosaccharides
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Novel Glyco-tools to Study Human Milk Oligosaccharides
IRAS ID
141425
Contact name
M. Carmen Galan
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 31 days
Research summary
Human milk contains hundreds of different O-linked oligosaccharides. The amount and diversity of the different structures differs substantially between different species and within humans depending on their blood groups, life style and general health. To date, more than 200 different unbound oligosaccharides have been found in human breast milk (HBM). Most of the structures characterized today contain a lactose disaccharide core as starting unit, to which other sugar units get attached by glycosyltransferases to form complex and diverse oligosaccharides with many, yet not fully known, biological functions. Interestingly, the oligosaccharide structures found in the milk resemble the glycan structures on epithelial cells with which pathogens interact and act as decoys to prevent gastrointestinal and urinary infections. Unfortunately, little is known about the full biological significance of the different oligosaccharide structures, due to the difficulty in isolating and analysing the individual oligosaccharide frangments.
Our team has developed a novel methodology, the Ionic Catch and Release Oligosaccharide Synthesis methodology (ICROS), that relies on the use of ionic-liquid-based probes (ITags) that are compatible with chemical and enzymatic oligosaccharide synthesis (using glycosyltransferases in vitro) and which facilitates reaction monitoring and purification of oligosaccharides.
The aim of this study is to use synthetic ITag-sugar-decoys to harness the glycosynthetic machinery of human milk. Incubation experiments of our ITag-probes in human milk will directly demonstrate that we can identify, characterize an isolate ITag-glycosyltransferase-products in an intricate environment and will help us identifying important oligosaccharide biomarkers and in the long term their correlation to biological function.REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EM/0131
Date of REC Opinion
4 Apr 2016
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion