Glycosylphosphatidylinositol Anchors

Michael A.J. Ferguson; Gerald W. Hart; Taroh Kinoshita

doi:10.1101/glycobiology.3e.012

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol Anchors

Review

In: Essentials of Glycobiology [Internet]. 3rd edition. Cold Spring Harbor (NY): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2015. Chapter 12.

2017.

Authors

Michael A.J. Ferguson, Gerald W. Hart, Taroh Kinoshita

Book Editors

Book Affiliations

¹ Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
² Professor of Surgery, Director, National Center for Functional Glycomics, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
³ Distinguished Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
⁴ Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Chair and Professor of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
⁵ Professor and Chairman of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁶ Professor of Mycology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
⁷ Regents Professor and Director, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
⁸ Professor, Laboratory of Immunoglycobiology, WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
⁹ Professor of Glycoproteomics and Glycomics, Macquarie University and Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Sydney, Australia
¹⁰ Professor and Eminent Scholar, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
¹¹ Professor, Departments of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
¹² Director, Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany

Excerpt

Plasma membrane proteins are either peripheral proteins or integral membrane proteins. The latter include proteins that span the lipid bilayer once or several times, and another class that are covalently attached to lipids. Proteins attached to glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) via their carboxyl termini are generally found in the outer leaflet of the lipid bilayer and face the extracellular environment. The GPI membrane anchor may be conveniently thought of as an alternative to the single transmembrane domain of type-1 integral membrane proteins. This chapter reviews the discovery, distribution, structure, biosynthesis, properties, and suggested functions of GPI membrane anchors and related molecules.

Sections

Publication types

Review