Biological findings from the recent NMR-based studies of glycosaminoglycan-protein interactions

Abstract

Besides regulating multiple physiological processes such as cellular growth, migration and differentiation, glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are also largely explored in the global market as clinical or nutraceutical agents. Generally, these physiological and biomedical events are ultimately triggered by the quality and nature of molecular interactions between GAGs and functional proteins. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy participates significantly in the investigations of most carbohydrate-protein interactions. The present review covers in a very systematic and comprehensive way the major NMR-based studies of GAG-protein interactions undertaken within the last 3 years. The main objective herein is, besides revisiting the results from these recent works, to present for the current glycomic era an overview about the underlying biological inferences drawn from these results.

Keywords: chemical shift perturbation; chemokines; chondroitin sulfate; heparan sulfate; heparin.