Many of the membrane proteins in eukaryotic cells are decorated with complex sugar trees called glycans. In addition to being extremely diverse, these sugar trees serve as a way to identify the respective organism, a cell type or its stage of maturity. For instance, the various blood groups in humans feature different glycans.
Complex sugars that are attached to lipids form a special class of glycans. In biology, these are known as lipid-linked oligosaccharides, or LLOs. LLOs are made up of a fat molecule embedded in the cell membrane and a sugar structure that extends either into the lumen of cell organelles or extracellularly.
Researchers from ETH Zurich, the University of Bern and the University of Chicago have now elucidated the structure of one of the enzymes responsible for the formation of LLOs. Their study has just been published in the latest issue of the journal
Nature
.
Modular protein architecture
The enzyme in question, known as ALG6, belongs to a superfamily of enzymes that the researchers call glycosyltransferases of the category C. Embedded in cell membranes, these link simple sugar molecules with other sugars in order to build sugar trees. They also link sugar molecules with proteins. In this capacity, glycosyltransferases play several key biological roles in all kinds of organisms, ranging from bacteria and fungi to highly developed mammals.
This enzyme superfamily had been a long-standing mystery to biologists because its individual members share hardly any structural motifs. The only things they do have in common is that they are membrane proteins that transfer sugars from one molecule to another, and that the sugars used for this transfer are always attached to lipids.
Based on the structure of ALG6, the group led by ETH Professor Kaspar Locher has now discovered that the members of this enzyme family have a modular design. Their research indicates that ALG6 and its relatives are made up of two modules: one whose structure is preserved during development, and a second, structurally variable module.
“We believe it’s this modular design that helped these enzymes to evolve in different directions and, in turn, adapt to a large variety of different substrates,” says Joël Bloch, an ETH doctoral student and the lead author of the study.
The findings finally explain the mechanism behind the enzyme family. “Our study has far-reaching implications for cell biology and for the production of therapeutic substances based on glycobiology,” Bloch explains. These insights will be especially valuable in antibody engineering, which is currently of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry. They will also benefit the production of customised glycans in general, which are important for therapeutic proteins such as antibodies.
