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Updated: Jul 30, 2026

Metabolic Glycoengineering of Sialic Acid Using N-acyl-modified Mannosamines
Published on: November 25, 2017
Efficient biochemical engineering of cellular sialic acids using an unphysiological sialic acid precursor in cells
L R Mantey1, O T Keppler, M Pawlita
1Institut für Molekularbiologie und Biochemie, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
Sialic acids comprise a family of terminal sugars essential for a variety of biological recognition systems. N-Propanoylmannosamine, an unphysiological sialic acid precursor, is taken up and metabolized by mammalian cells resulting in oligosaccharide-bound N-propanoylneuraminic acid. N-Propanoylmannosamine, applied to endogenously hyposialylated subclones of the myeloid leukemia HL60 and of the B-cell lymphoma BJA-B, both deficient in UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase, is efficiently metabolized to CMP-N-propanoylneuraminic acid resulting in up to 85% of glycoconjugate-associated sialic acids being unphysiological N-propanoylneuraminic acid. Thus, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine 2-epimerase-deficient cell lines provide an important experimental progress in engineering cells to display an almost homogeneous population of defined, structurally altered sialic acids.
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