Hallmarks of Caenorhabditis elegans N-glycosylation: complexity and controversy

Caenorhabditis elegans has become one of the most widely used model organisms for a range of molecular cell biological applications and is being increasingly used by glycobiologists. However, a major problem has been the lack of knowledge of the structure of the protein-linked glycans from this organism. In recent years several groups have published structural data, particularly N-glycan structural data. However, some of these data are contradictory. In this review we critically assess all the N-glycan structural data and consider how close we are in our goal of defining the glycome of C. elegans.