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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Imaging Glycans in Zebrafish Embryos by Metabolic Labeling and Bioorthogonal Click Chemistry
Published on: June 6, 2011
Direct Visualization of Live Zebrafish Glycans via Single-Step Metabolic Labeling with Fluorophore-Tagged Nucleotide
Senlian Hong1, Pankaj Sahai-Hernandez2, Digantkumar Gopaldas Chapla3
1Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
Abstract:
Dynamic turnover of cell-surface glycans is involved in a myriad of biological events, making this process an attractive target for in vivo molecular imaging. Metabolic glycan labeling coupled with bioorthogonal chemistry has paved the way for visualizing glycans in living organisms. However, a two-step labeling sequence is required, which suffers from the tissue-penetration difficulties of the imaging probes. Here, by exploring the substrate promiscuity of endogenous glycosyltransferases, we developed a single-step fluorescent glycan labeling strategy by using fluorophore-tagged analogues of the nucleotide sugars. Injecting fluorophore-tagged sialic acid and fucose into the yolk of zebrafish embryos at the one-cell stage enables systematic imaging of sialylation and fucosylation in live zebrafish embryos at distinct developmental stages. From these studies, we obtained insights into the role of sialylated and fucosylated glycans in zebrafish hematopoiesis.
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