Wesley Pietsch, Tom Schumann, Marc Safferthal, Niklas Geue, Kevin Pagel, Michael Götze
{"title":"The Road Toward Nanopore Sequencing of Glycosaminoglycans.","authors":"Wesley Pietsch, Tom Schumann, Marc Safferthal, Niklas Geue, Kevin Pagel, Michael Götze","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_750","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_750","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nanopores have emerged as a powerful, label-free technique for single molecule analysis, offering high sensitivity and rapid analysis capabilities. Originally developed for DNA sequencing, nanopores have shown promise not only for the characterization of other biomolecules, such as RNA, proteins, and glycans but also of small inorganic compounds, such as nanoparticles. Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are a linear, highly charged subclass of glycans, which play essential roles in cell signaling, tissue development, and inflammation processes. The immense structural complexity of GAGs involving unique sulfation patterns renders their analysis challenging. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview on the application of biological and solid-state nanopores for the analysis of GAGs.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144181426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Henrique Oliveira Duarte, Celso Albuquerque Reis, Veronique Blanchard, Rudolf Tauber
{"title":"Glycosylation in Cancer.","authors":"Henrique Oliveira Duarte, Celso Albuquerque Reis, Veronique Blanchard, Rudolf Tauber","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_751","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Structural alterations of the glycan chains attached to glycoproteins and glycolipids are present in all types of malignomas investigated to date, including adenocarcinomas, sarcomas and haematological malignancies. They occur in humans as well as in animals including experimental models of malignancy, regardless of the type, cause, or stage of the tumour. The biochemical and genomic characterization of the enzymatic machineries involved in glycan biosynthesis in cancer cells shows that tumour-associated glycosylation changes are a critical part of tumour initiation and progression. Experimental studies and epidemiological findings give clear evidence that tumour-associated glycans bear functional significance in the invasive and metastatic growth of malignancies, for immunological tumour defence and, hence, influence the clinical outcome and the prognosis of cancer patients. Tumour-associated glycan changes are, moreover, targets for new pharmacological and immunological therapy methods and serve as important clinical biomarkers for diagnosis, particularly for monitoring disease progression and therapeutic efficacy. This chapter provides an overview of the major types of changes of glycosylation, genetic and biochemical mechanisms contributing to cancer-associated glycosylation, functional consequences for tumour growth and the clinical significance in cancer diagnosis, monitoring and treatment.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144181095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Breadth of Pharmacology Modeling: Fundamentals of Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Mechanistic Modeling.","authors":"Donald E Mager","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_746","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_746","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The basic principles of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics represent the foundational knowledge base upon which complex quantitative systems pharmacology models of drug action are built. This chapter provides a high-level overview of fundamental factors that determine the disposition and physiological responses to drugs and the application of compartmental models to characterize the time-course of drug exposure and pharmacological effects. Many of these processes are subject to capacity-limitation, which is defined by a nonlinear function containing a driving substrate concentration and parameters representing the capacity of the process and a substrate affinity constant. Most contemporary mechanism-based pharmacodynamic models are developed by integrating an appropriate drug exposure forcing function, a mathematical model of the interaction between the drug and its target (i.e., binding and transduction), and the physiological turnover (or production and loss) of the biomarker of drug response. Numerous complexities can be introduced to basic models, such as homeostatic feedback, tolerance mechanisms, disease progression, drug interactions, circadian rhythms, and many others. These basic and advanced models can be viewed as the groundwork for the development of comprehensive quantitative systems pharmacology models that are applicable across biological spatiotemporal scales.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144009013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Glycosylation in Stem Cell Biology.","authors":"Chika Ogura, Shoko Nishihara","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_748","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells originally derived from the inner cell mass of blastocysts and have the essential characteristics of pluripotency and self-renewal. Pluripotent stem cells can differentiate into all of the cell types constituting the adult body. Our current understanding is that pluripotent stem cells transition through three stages: a naïve state, a formative state, and a primed state. The stemness and differentiation of pluripotent stem cells depend on cell-surface glycans, which work as essential modulators in ligand-receptor interactions, cell-cell interactions, and cell-extracellular matrix interactions. Cell-surface glycans bind to various signal ligands, including Wnt, fibroblast growth factors, and bone morphogenetic proteins, and are tissue-specific and developmentally regulated. In addition, intracellular O-linked N-acetylglucosamine, a modification found on only nuclear or cytoplasmic proteins, regulates core transcription factors involved in stemness, phosphorylation of downstream signal components, epigenetics, and liquid-liquid phase separation. Thus, various kinds of glycans regulate each stem cell status; furthermore, different glycan structures at each stage are simultaneously epigenetically regulated by the polycomb repressive complex PRC2. Understanding the functions of glycans in stemness and differentiation is increasingly important for both innovative clinical applications and basic research. This chapter focuses on the roles of glycans in mouse and human pluripotent stem cells.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144009016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chemical Synthesis of Complex Carbohydrates.","authors":"Paul Kosma","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_747","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The chapter provides a brief overview on current methodologies for the assembly of complex oligosaccharides by chemical synthesis. Following an introductory section describing the major factors and variables involved in glycosylation reactions, select examples for advanced approaches towards mammalian and bacterial glycans are discussed illustrating recent progress in the field of glycochemistry.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144004679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Niklas Geue, Caitlin Walton-Doyle, Eleonora Renzi, Mathew Bejoy, Kevin Pagel
{"title":"Advanced Mass Spectrometry Techniques for the Characterization of Carbohydrates.","authors":"Niklas Geue, Caitlin Walton-Doyle, Eleonora Renzi, Mathew Bejoy, Kevin Pagel","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_749","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mass spectrometry-based techniques have emerged as a gamechanger for the analysis of carbohydrates. Here, we summarize state-of-the-art glycan analysis in vacuo, demonstrating how mass spectrometry, tandem mass spectrometry, ion mobility spectrometry, and gas-phase infrared spectroscopy, supported by chromatography methods and computational modelling, facilitate the structural characterization of isolated glycans and the analysis of the entire glycome. After an introduction to glycans and techniques, the sugar classes of N-glycans, O-glycans, human milk oligosaccharides, and glycosaminoglycans will be discussed in detail, before the chapter ends with an outlook on the future of mass spectrometry-based glycan analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143964225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decrypting Glycosaminoglycan \"sulfation code\" with Computational Approaches.","authors":"Sergey A Samsonov, Mateusz P Marcisz","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_741","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), linear anionic periodic polysaccharides, play pivotal roles in various biologically relevant processes within the extracellular matrix (ECM). These processes encompass cell development, proliferation, signaling, ECM assembly, coagulation, and angiogenesis. GAGs perform their functions through their interactions with specific protein partners, rendering them attractive targets for regenerative medicine and drug design. However, the molecular mechanisms governing protein-GAG interactions remain unclear. Classical structure determination techniques face significant challenges when dealing with protein-GAG complexes. This is due to GAGs' unique properties, including their extensive length, flexibility, periodicity, symmetry, multipose binding, and the high heterogeneity of their sulfation patterns constituting the \"sulfation code.\" Consequently, only a limited number of experimental protein-GAG structures have been elucidated. Hence, theoretical approaches are particularly promising in deciphering the code for understanding the structure-function relationship of these complex molecules. In this chapter, we focus on the particularities, challenges, and advances of computational methods such as molecular docking, molecular dynamics, and free-energy calculations when applied to GAG-containing systems. These computational approaches offer valuable insights into the enigmatic world of protein-GAG interactions, paving the way for their enhanced understanding and potential therapeutic applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143752383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexandre Raynor, Élodie Lebredonchel, François Foulquier, François Fenaille, Arnaud Bruneel
{"title":"Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approaches in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation.","authors":"Alexandre Raynor, Élodie Lebredonchel, François Foulquier, François Fenaille, Arnaud Bruneel","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_745","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) constitute an increasing group of inborn metabolic disorders, with more than 170 described diseases to date. A disturbed glycosylation process characterizes them, with molecular defects localized in distinct cell compartments. In CDG, N-glycosylation, O-glycosylation, glycosylation of lipids (including phosphatidylinositol) as well as the glycosaminoglycan synthesis can be affected. Owing to the importance of glycosylation for the function of concerned proteins and lipids, glycosylation defects have diverse clinical consequences. CDG affected individuals often present with a non-specific multivisceral syndrome including neurological involvement, intellectual disability, dysmorphia, and hepatopathy. As CDG are rare diseases frequently lacking distinctive symptoms, biochemical and genetic testing bear important and complementary diagnostic roles.After an introduction on glycosylation and CDG, we review current biomarkers and analytical techniques in the field. Furthermore, we illustrate their interests in the follow-up of proven therapeutic approaches including D-mannose in MPI-CDG, D-galactose in PGM1-CDG, and manganese (MnSO<sub>4</sub>) in TMEM165-CDG.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143676968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Integrating QSP and ML to Facilitate Drug Development and Personalized Medicine.","authors":"Tongli Zhang","doi":"10.1007/164_2024_740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2024_740","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this chapter, the potential integration between quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) and machine learning (ML) is explored. ML models are in their nature \"black boxes\", since they make predictions based on data without explicit system definitions, while on the other hand, QSP models are \"white boxes\" that describe mechanistic biological interactions and investigate the systems properties emerging from such interactions. Despite their differences, both approaches have unique strengths that can be leveraged to form a powerful integrated tool. ML's ability to handle large datasets and make predictions is complemented by QSP's detailed mechanistic insights into drug actions and biological systems. The chapter discusses basic ML techniques and their application in drug development, including supervised and unsupervised learning methods. It also illustrates how combining QSP with ML can facilitate the design of combination therapies against cancer resistance to single therapies. The synergy between these two methodologies shows promise to accelerate the drug development process, making it more efficient and tailored to individual patient needs.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143673435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yevhenii Radchenko, Johannes M F G Aerts, Gideon J Davies, Jeroen D C Codée, Herman S Overkleeft
{"title":"Activity-Based Profiling of Retaining Glycosidases in Disease Diagnosis and Their Application in Drug Discovery.","authors":"Yevhenii Radchenko, Johannes M F G Aerts, Gideon J Davies, Jeroen D C Codée, Herman S Overkleeft","doi":"10.1007/164_2025_743","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/164_2025_743","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Retaining glycosidases employ a two-step double displacement mechanism to hydrolyze their substrate glycosides. This mechanism involves a covalent enzyme-substrate adduct, and irreversible retaining glycosidase inhibitors have been designed based on this mechanism. Tagging such inhibitors with a reported moiety (biotin, fluorophore, bioorthogonal tag) provides activity-based retaining glycosidase probes. This chapter describes research on such activity-based probes that are inspired by the natural product retaining β-glucosidase inhibitor, cyclophellitol. Modulation of the configuration and substitution pattern yielded a suite of probes with which a host of retaining glycosidases are inhibited, and reported on, including enzymes involved in human pathologies (cancer, inherited lysosomal storage disorders). This chapter provides insights into their design and synthesis, their application in disease diagnosis, and their application in drug discovery, both as tools to uncover competitive inhibitors and as starting point for the design of covalent inhibitors.</p>","PeriodicalId":12859,"journal":{"name":"Handbook of experimental pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143676963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}