EAPSI: Development of a Powerful Protein Analysis Toolbox to Study Carbohydrate and Protein Interactions

Tasnima Nova, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

Carbohydrate and protein interactions play important roles in biological events. This project will study functionalities of different types of the enzyme alpha-L-fucosidase, which interact with carbohydrate molecules containing L-fucose. L-fucose is naturally abundant, and found in human milk oligosaccharides. In humans, deficiency of alpha-L-fucosidase can give rise to a rare autosomal recessive disorder called fucosidosis, and clinical findings indicate that abnormal levels of it can be potentially associated with other rare diseases. This project will investigate alpha-L-fucosidase activities by using multiple carbohydrate structures as probes. The results from this project will provide insights about the structure-activity relationship between alpha-L-fucosidases and different types of carbohydrate molecules. This toolbox will be further beneficial to characterizing newly discovered alpha-L-fucosidases. This research work will be done with Professor Chun-Hung Lin, a distinguished scientist in the field of carbohydrate chemistry, at Academia Sinica Research Institute of Taiwan. Professor Lin's group has done extensive research work to study alpha-L-fucosidases and this collaboration is an invaluable opportunity to learn further aspects of this research area. This project will develop a toolbox of molecular probes to study alpha-L-fucosidase catalytic activities. Alpha-L-fucosidase is an important protein that can cleave L-fucose, an abundant sugar molecule, from carbohydrate structures. The L-fucose linkages may vary from one carbohydrate structure to another. Deficiency or abnormal levels of alpha-L-fucosidase is related to several medical conditions including fucosidosis, carcinoma of the stomach, and cystic fibrosis etc. However, the roles of alpha-L-fucosidases are not well understood. Under the plan for this project, alpha-L-fucosidases from collaborator's group will be tested with the molecular probes which will allow to study catalytic function(s) of the proteins. Additionally, discovery of alpha-L-fucosidases that are catalytically active toward one specific type of L-fucose linkage will be useful as it can be used as a tool to analyze complex carbohydrate structures. This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan.