What Is Glycobiology?

Scientists call the science of studying polysaccharides in living organisms "glycobiology", and some people follow the concepts of "genomics" and "proteomics" and call this discipline "glycogenomics". The term glycobiology was introduced in 1988. Professor Dick of Oxford University wrote a review titled "Glycobiology" in the "Annual Review of Biochemistry" that year, which marked the birth of a new branch of glucose biology.

Glycobiology

Glycobiology (glycobiology) is a science that studies the structure, chemistry, biosynthesis, and biological functions of glycans and their derivatives ^[1]

Scientists call the science of studying polysaccharides in living organisms "glycobiology", and some people follow "

Medical researchers across countries are studying how sugar affects Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and

Disease-resistant sugar drugs come from a wide range of sources, most of which are naturally occurring compounds, such as polysaccharide glycosides. This is consistent with the current trend of returning to nature, and can be combined with the development of Chinese herbal medicine. Since the site of action of most sugar-based drugs is on the cell surface, such drugs interfere with the entire cell and the body much less than drugs that enter the cell. Scientists believe that sugar is one of the drugs with relatively small side effects. They can be used not only as medicines for treating diseases, but also as health foods. These sugar-based drugs can be used not only for humans but also for pesticides. Compared with traditional chemical pesticides, sugar-based biochemical pesticides have less pollution to the environment. ^[3]

The reason sugar biology lags behind genetic and protein research is that previous researchers lacked effective tools to study sugar molecules and the complexity of sugar molecules themselves. "We haven't deciphered its code yet, and we are only in the initial stages of revealing the mystery of sugar," said Saxisek Harlan, a glucobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The focus of life science research in the 21st century is to explain the high-level life phenomena of multicellular organisms.

In 1989, Japan launched the "Science of Sugar Science and Sugar Engineering" magazine. In the same year, the Japanese Government's Department of Science and Technology proposed a consultation on the Sugar Engineering Foundation and Applied Research Promotion Strategy, which became an exhaustive strategic plan after expert review. Implementation of the "Sugar Engineering Frontier Plan" with a total investment of 10 billion yen for a period of 15 years. The program includes: sugar engineering and sugar biology. The latter is divided into sugar molecular biology and sugar cell biology. At the same time, the "Sugar Engineering Research Council" was established as a coordinating agency. The council edited and published the monograph Sugar Engineering.

The U.S. Department of Energy funded the University of Georgia in 1986 to set up a complex sugar research center to build a complex sugar database. The related computer program is also called the "sugar bank project." At the end of 1990, 6,000 sugar structure data had been collected, which increased to 9,200 in 1992. At the end of 1992, the relevant records increased to 22,000 and in 1996 to 42,000.

Europe is not far behind. The European Union's 1994-1998 research plan included a "European Sugar Research and Development Network" project. The purpose is to carry sugar research and development in European countries to strengthen Europe's ability to compete with the United States and Japan in basic sugar research and transform research results into commodities. ^[4]

Because of the attention of the United States, Japan and Europe. Much progress has been made in sugar research in recent years. The research results have confirmed that sugars as information molecules play an important role in fertilization, development, development, differentiation, maintenance of the nervous system and immune system homeostasis; inflammation and autoimmune diseases, aging, abnormal proliferation and transformation of cancer cells The carbohydrates are involved in physiological and pathological processes such as pathogen infection. Glycobiology is a cutting-edge discipline in life science that emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Glycobioengineering is the most compelling new field of biotechnology after genetic engineering and protein engineering. The research results of sugar bioengineering have been widely used in medicine, agriculture, food, chemical industry, energy, environmental protection and other fields.

The relationship between sugar and human health is very close. Sugar, protein and nucleic acid are three major biological macromolecules. Sugar is the largest biomass in nature, and sugar chains are the largest bioinformatics database in nature. Oligosaccharides (2-10 monosaccharide polymerized sugar chains) are one of the most complex and diverse types of biological information molecules in living organisms. Oligosaccharides are ubiquitous in organisms and participate in all life processes of almost all eukaryotes. In January 2007, the first public nutrition improvement project implemented by the National Public Nutrition Improvement Plan in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, the National Development and Reform Commission's Public Nutrition Improvement OLIGO Project, was officially launched. As an integral part of the OLIGO project, "oligochitosan and human future health engineering" has played a positive role in promoting the development of China's public health cause and has far-reaching impact and significance on people's health. ^[3]