Tools to cleave glycoproteins

There are a variety of enzymes available that are able to cleave glycoproteins, including enzymes that are specific for carbohydrate-carbohydrate linkages, carbohydrate-protein bonds and the peptide backbone. Such enzymes are useful for determining the sites of glycosylation within proteins, and for releasing glycan structures for subsequent carbohydrate analysis. One protease has been identified as being specific for O-sialoglycoproteins and can be used to identify such molecules and their epitope regions. The lack of cytotoxicity and the narrow specificity of this enzyme provides an improved method for the immunomagnetic selection of human bone-marrow stem-cells.