Co-author Charles Nwosu’s paper entitled, “Simultaneous and Extensive Site-specific N- and O-Glycosylation Analysis in Protein Mixtures” was recently published in the Journal of Proteome Research.  Nwosu is a graduate student in the Chemistry program at UC Davis, and has been studying glycoproteins since he became a member of Dr. Carlito Lebrilla’s lab in 2007.  Recently he has been developing novel methods and improving on well established methods of characterizing glycosylation in proteins.

The glycosylation of proteins (addition of sugar moieties to proteins) is an important topic of study as it has been shown to be linked to disease conditions such as cancer and other biological processes and conditions.  The glycosylation analysis of glycoproteins is difficult to analyze due to the complexity of glycosylation in proteins.  Nwosu and colleagues have been working to develop a method that can be used to extensively determine site-specific glycosylation in protein mixtures and have developed a procedure for analyzing these individual glycoproteins.  This process has made it possible to simultaneously characterize the different types of protein attachments, N- and O-glycosites, in the same mixture.  Prior to this development, proteins had to be pre-fractionated based on their glycosylation prior to their analysis; however, this is no longer necessary with the more efficient analysis process that Nwosu and colleagues have developed.

Nwosu describes his time with the FFHI as follows: “It has been an exciting experience being a part of the FFHI.  There’s always a lot to learn from its members during regular research meetings with collaborators as ideas are shared and the feedbacks from such meetings turn out to be invaluable when I get back to my workbench experiments.  My PI, Professor Carlito Lebrilla [a co-author of the recently published paper on glycosylation analysis] has been an indispensable mentor in my research.” Eventually Nwosu and colleagues hope to extend their method of analysis to more complicated samples such as milk and glyco-nanoparticles like HDL and LDL, but for now they are excited with their new analytical technique of studying glycoproteins and have developed a highly sought after analytical technique in the glycoproteomic field.

Read the full article, “Simultaneous and Extensive Site-specific N- and O-Glycosylation Analysis in Protein Mixture,” from the Journal of Proteome Research.