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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Bioinformatics Resources for the Study of Glycan-Mediated Protein Interactions
Published on: January 20, 2022
Cell-based glycan arrays for probing glycan-glycan binding protein interactions
Jennie Grace Briard1, Hao Jiang2, Kelley W Moremen3
1Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
Abstract:
Glycan microarrays provide a high-throughput means of profiling the interactions of glycan-binding proteins with their ligands. However, the construction of current glycan microarray platforms is time consuming and expensive. Here, we report a fast and cost-effective method for the assembly of cell-based glycan arrays to probe glycan-glycan-binding protein interactions directly on the cell surface. Chinese hamster ovary cell mutants with a narrow and relatively homogeneous repertoire of glycoforms serve as the foundation platforms to develop these arrays. Using recombinant glycosyltransferases, sialic acid, fucose, and analogs thereof are installed on cell-surface glycans to form cell-based arrays displaying diverse glycan epitopes that can be probed with glycan-binding proteins by flow cytometry. Using this platform, high-affinity glycan ligands are discovered for Siglec-15-a sialic acid-binding lectin involved in osteoclast differentiation. Incubating human osteoprogenitor cells with cells displaying a high-affinity Siglec-15 ligand impairs osteoclast differentiation, demonstrating the utility of this cell-based glycan array technology.
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