Enzyme-Glycan Array Service

What is Enzyme-Glycan Array Assay?

An enzyme-glycan array is an advanced analytical technique used to study the interactions between enzymes and glycans. Glycans, complex carbohydrates that play crucial roles in various biological processes, are often linked to proteins and lipids, affecting cellular communication, immunity, and disease progression. Understanding enzyme-glycan interactions is essential for elucidating the mechanisms of glycosylation and its implications in health and disease.

The enzyme-glycan array allows researchers to profile and analyze these interactions comprehensively. By immobilizing a diverse library of glycans on a solid surface and exposing them to various enzymes, scientists can observe binding patterns and enzymatic activity. This method is invaluable for identifying glycan substrates for specific enzymes, discovering novel enzymatic activities, and studying the dynamics of glycan modification.

Principle of Enzyme-Glycan Array

The principle behind the enzyme-glycan array involves immobilizing a wide variety of glycans on a solid substrate, such as a glass slide or microarray chip. These glycans serve as potential substrates for the enzymes under investigation. The array is then incubated with enzymes, which can be purified proteins or complex biological samples such as cell lysates or serum.

During incubation, enzymes interact with the immobilized glycans, resulting in specific binding or catalysis of glycan modifications. Detection methods, such as fluorescent labeling or mass spectrometry, are then used to analyze these interactions. The resulting data provides a detailed map of enzyme specificities and activities, enabling researchers to draw meaningful conclusions about enzyme functions and glycan roles.

Enzyme-Glycan Array Assay Platform Offered by Creative Proteomics

Creative Proteomics provides a comprehensive range of services through our advanced enzyme-glycan array assay platform. These services are designed to support diverse research needs and applications in glycobiology, enzymology, and related fields. Here is a detailed overview of the services we offer:

Enzyme Specificity Profiling

Our enzyme specificity profiling service allows researchers to determine the substrate specificity of various glycan-modifying enzymes, such as glycosidases, glycosyltransferases, and glycan-binding proteins. This service includes:

• Substrate Identification: Screening a wide array of glycans to identify specific substrates that an enzyme can interact with or modify.
• Kinetic Analysis: Measuring the enzymatic activity over time to determine reaction rates and kinetic parameters, such as Km and Vmax.
• Binding Affinity Assessment: Quantifying the strength of interaction between enzymes and their glycan substrates.

Biomarker Discovery

Glycan structures can serve as biomarkers for various diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. Our biomarker discovery service focuses on identifying glycan-based biomarkers by:

• Comparative Glycan Profiling: Analyzing glycan patterns in different biological samples (e.g., healthy vs. diseased tissue) to identify potential biomarkers.
• Quantitative Analysis: Using advanced detection techniques to quantify changes in glycan expression levels.
• Validation Studies: Confirming the clinical relevance of identified biomarkers through additional testing and validation.

Drug Development and Screening

The enzyme-glycan array platform is an invaluable tool for drug development, particularly for screening potential glycan-based inhibitors or modulators of enzymatic activity. Services in this area include:

• High-Throughput Screening: Rapidly screening large libraries of compounds to identify potential inhibitors or enhancers of glycan-modifying enzymes.
• Mechanism of Action Studies: Investigating how identified compounds interact with enzymes and affect their activity at the molecular level.
• Lead Optimization: Refining the chemical structures of identified leads to improve their efficacy, specificity, and pharmacokinetic properties.

Pathogen-Host Interaction Studies

Understanding the role of glycans in pathogen recognition and host immune responses is critical for developing new therapeutic strategies. Our services in this area include:

• Glycan Recognition Studies: Investigating how pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, recognize and bind to host glycans.
• Immune Response Analysis: Studying how glycan modifications on pathogens influence immune recognition and response.
• Vaccine Development: Identifying glycan targets for vaccine development and testing the efficacy of glycan-based vaccine candidates.

Customized Glycan Array Development

For researchers with specific needs, Creative Proteomics offers customized glycan array development services. This includes:

• Custom Glycan Synthesis: Synthesizing specific glycans or glycan derivatives according to client specifications.
• Array Design and Fabrication: Designing and fabricating custom glycan arrays tailored to the unique requirements of the research project.
• Application-Specific Assays: Developing and optimizing assays for specific applications, such as diagnostics, therapeutics, or basic research.

Comprehensive Data Analysis and Reporting

Data analysis is a crucial aspect of enzyme-glycan array experiments. Our data analysis services provide:

• Quantitative Analysis: Precise quantification of enzyme-glycan interactions using advanced software tools.
• Statistical Analysis: Rigorous statistical analysis to ensure the reliability and reproducibility of the results.
• Detailed Reporting: Comprehensive reports that include raw data, analyzed results, and expert interpretations to guide further research.

Advantages of Our Enzyme-Glycan Array Platform

• High-throughput screening: Glycan arrays allow for the simultaneous screening of enzyme activities against hundreds or thousands of glycan substrates in a miniaturized format, enabling rapid identification of enzyme specificities.
• Requires small amounts of enzymes and glycans: Only minute amounts of enzymes and glycans are needed for the array experiments, making it suitable for studying enzymes with limited availability.
• Provides information on both positive and negative interactions: Glycan arrays can identify glycan structures that are both accepted and rejected as substrates by the enzyme, which is valuable for understanding specificity.
• Enables profiling of enzyme activities: By incubating enzymes with the glycan array and analyzing the modified glycans, the platform can be used to profile enzyme substrate specificities and activities.
• Allows discovery of new enzyme activities: Glycan arrays serve as a powerful discovery tool to screen enzymes against diverse glycan structures and identify new enzyme activities.
• Complements other techniques: The array data can guide further experiments using other methods like in-solution assays to obtain quantitative binding constants.

Sample Requirements for Enzyme-Glycan Array Assays

Applications of Enzyme-Glycan Array

Enzyme Specificity Profiling

Determine the substrate specificity of glycan-modifying enzymes, such as glycosidases and glycosyltransferases. By screening a broad array of glycans, researchers can identify specific substrates and better understand enzyme functions and metabolic pathways. This is crucial for applications in biotechnology.

Biomarker Discovery

Glycan structures often change in various diseases, making them valuable biomarkers. Enzyme-glycan arrays compare glycan profiles between healthy and diseased samples, identifying glycan markers for conditions such as cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. This facilitates the development of diagnostic tests and personalized treatment strategies.

Drug Development and Screening

Screen for glycan-based inhibitors or modulators of enzyme activity. High-throughput screening capabilities allow researchers to quickly identify potential drug candidates that can modulate glycan-modifying enzymes, valuable for developing therapies for diseases where glycan interactions are critical.

Pathogen-Host Interaction Studies

Understand how pathogens interact with host glycans to develop new antimicrobial strategies. Enzyme-glycan arrays identify specific glycans that pathogens bind to during infection, leading to the development of vaccines and therapeutics that target these interactions.

Glycoprotein Characterization

Analyze the glycosylation patterns of glycoproteins, providing insights into their biological roles and therapeutic potential. This is particularly important in the development of biologic drugs, where glycosylation affects drug efficacy and safety.

Cancer and Autoimmune Disease Research

Study changes in glycan structures in cancers and autoimmune diseases. Enzyme-glycan arrays improve the understanding of disease mechanisms and identify novel therapeutic targets. In cancer research, glycan alterations provide insights into tumor progression and metastasis, while in autoimmune diseases, they reveal dysregulated immune responses.

Vaccine Development

Identify glycan targets for vaccine development. By understanding how immune cells recognize specific glycans, researchers can design vaccines that elicit strong and targeted immune responses, especially against pathogens with complex glycan structures.

Environmental and Agricultural Research

Study glycan interactions in plants and microorganisms, improving crop resistance to diseases and pests. Enzyme-glycan arrays also facilitate the exploration of glycan-based processes in environmental biotechnology, such as biofuel production and bioremediation.