Protein Glycosylation in
Heterogeneous Expression Systems
XU Qiang and WANG Ke-Yi
Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031,China
Abstract Glycosylation, the addition of
sugar residues to peptide backbone, is the most common post-translational
modification of proteins in eukaryotic cells, and has important functions in
secretion, antigenicity, and metabolism of glycoproteins. Majority of proteins
of pharmaceutical interest are glycoproteins. In recent years, great advances
have been made in understanding the versatile biological functions of
carbohydrates, in the accurate analysis of glycoprotein heterogeneity, and in
controlling the biosynthetic pathways of glycosylation. The aim of this mini
review is to discuss general advantages and potential problems of different
systems for expressing recombinant glycoproteins.
Key words
Glycosylation; expression system
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