Deciphering the Cell Surface Sugar-Coating via Biochemical Pathways

Cell surface components, specifically glycans, play a significant role in several biological functions like cell structure, crosstalk between cells, and eventual target recognition of the cells for therapeutics. The dense layer of glycans, i. e., glycocalyx, could differ in taxon, species, and cell type. Glycans are coupled with lipids and proteins to form glycolipids, glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored proteins, making their study challenging. However, understanding glycosylation at the cellular level is vital for fundamental research and advancing glycan-targeted therapy. Among different pathways, metabolic glycan labelling uses the natural metabolic processes of the cell to introduce abiotic functionality into glycan residues. The Bertozzi group pioneered metabolic oligosaccharide engineering using glycan salvage pathways to convert monosaccharides with unnatural modifications. This eventually results in the probe becoming part of the complex cellular glycan structures via click chemistry using copper. On the other hand, the boronic acid-based probe can recognise carbohydrates in a single step without any chemical modification of the surface. This review discusses the significance of glycans as biomarkers for different diseases and the necessity to evaluate them in situ within the physiological environment. The review also discusses the prospect of this field and its potential applications.