Cellular Glycomics - Recent Strategies and Approaches

Cell surface glycans existing as glycolipids, glycoproteins and proteoglycans, known as “the cellular glycome”, play fundamental biological functions and vary between cell types, stages of development and differentiation, and during disease development. Analysis of the cellular glycome provides a basis for understanding the functions of glycans in these cellular processes and molecular mechanisms of these cellular events as well. Recently, a variety of techniques have been developed to analyze the cellular glycome. These technologies include (i) lectin microarray, (ii) glycan microarray, (ii) MS spectrometry, and (iv) imaging cell surface glycans focusing on cellular glycomics, and are briefly highlighted below.