Introduction to Glycomics

Why are sugar molecules important?

Sugars are everywhere in our bodies and the environment. Sugar molecules do much more than simply provide a source of food energy – they give trees their strength, determine our blood types, and protect microorganisms from their environments. In fact, sugars (also called carbohydrates or saccharides) are the most abundant biomolecule on the planet. Along with proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, sugars are one of the fundamental building blocks of biology. Glycans coat the surface of every cell in our bodies, and their attachment to enzymes is the most common post-translational modification.

How is glycomics a uprising and promising field?

Unlike nucleic acids and proteins, glycans are not synthesized using a template, and so their expression and composition can vary wildly depending upon the local cellular environment. As well, individual sugars can be linked together in many more ways than nucleic acids and proteins, greatly complicating synthetic and analytical efforts. For these reasons, automated synthesis and databases are not as well developed in glycomics as they are in genomics and proteomics, but these technologies are advancing rapidly.