Prokaryotic glycosylation

Abstract

With the advances of molecular biology and with improved analytical techniques a significant change of perception has taken place regarding prokaryotic glycoproteins. Glycosylation of proteins from prokaryotes is no longer considered a specific feature of certain organisms but has been demonstrated for many archaea and bacteria. Besides the occurrence of glycosylated enzymes, antigens and other cell envelope components, surface layer (S-layer) glycoproteins represent the best-studied examples of glycosylated prokaryotic proteins. They are widely distributed among archaeal wild-type strains, but among bacteria they have been mainly observed with Gram-positive organisms. There is, in general, an enormous increase of reports on the presence of glycosylated proteins among prokaryotes. For their isolation and characterization a great number of methods are available, aiming at the identification of the covalent linkage between the carbohydrate and the polypeptide portion. So far, several differences in structure and biosynthesis have been observed in comparison to eukaryotic glycoproteins. In this review we introduce a protocol which has been successfully applied to the investigation of the complex structures, linkage units, and polypeptide consensus sequences of glycosylated bacterial S-layer proteins.