Two Paralogous Gb3/CD77 Synthases in Birds Show Different Preferences for Their Glycoprotein and Glycosphingolipid Substrates

oleh: Anna Bereznicka, Krzysztof Mikolajczyk, Katarzyna Szymczak-Kulus, Katarzyna Kapczynska, Edyta Majorczyk, Anna Modlinska, Tomasz Piasecki, Radoslaw Kaczmarek, Marcin Czerwinski

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2021-09-01

Deskripsi

Most glycosyltransferases show remarkable gross and fine substrate specificity, which is reflected in the old one enzyme-one linkage paradigm. While human Gb3/CD77 synthase is a glycosyltransferase that synthesizes the Galα1→4Gal moiety mainly on glycosphingolipids, its pigeon homolog prefers glycoproteins as acceptors. In this study, we characterized two Gb3/CD77 synthase paralogs found in pigeons (<i>Columba livia</i>). We evaluated their specificities in transfected human teratocarcinoma 2102Ep cells by flow cytofluorometry, Western blotting, high-performance thin-layer chromatography, mass spectrometry and metabolic labelling with <sup>14</sup>C-galactose. We found that the previously described pigeon Gb3/CD77 synthase (called P) can use predominately glycoproteins as acceptors, while its paralog (called M), which we serendipitously discovered while conducting this study, efficiently synthesizes Galα1→4Gal caps on both glycoproteins and glycosphingolipids. These two paralogs may underlie the difference in expression profiles of Galα1→4Gal-terminated glycoconjugates between neoavians and mammals.