Yeast-Glyco · Nucleocytoplasmic O-glycosylation in Yeast

Nucleocytoplasmic O-glycosylation in Yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae, more commonly known as yeast, are single-cell organism predominantly responsible for breakdown (fermentation) of simple carbohydrates in nature. In science, yeast have for a long time been one of the best characterized organism from the genetic, biochemical and physiological point of view and are continuously used by scientist to explore and understand biological processes in higher eukaryotic organisms, which include e.g. plants, mammals and humans. Yeast utilize a biochemical process known as phosphorylation to control biological processes; specific biological functions, e.g. cell division or carbohydrate fermentation may be activated or deactivated in yeast by phosphorylation. Surprisingly, yeast lack the co-regulatory mechanisms known as O-GlcNAcylation, which is so commonly used by many other eukaryotic organisms (plants, mammals, humans etc.), to control many important biological functions. Dysregulation of O-GlcNAcylation is associated with human illness and it has remained a longstanding conundrum how yeast control biological functions without the involvement of O-GlcNAcylation. This project is based on our discovery demonstrating that yeast indeed have a co-regulatory mechanisms for controlling biological processes based on a similar mechanisms known as O-Mannosylation and aims to improve our understanding of O-Mannosylations in eukaryotes. More specifically, this research project aims to explore when and where yeast utilize the O-Mannosylation mechanism and how it functions in yeast cell biology. In addition, this project aims to identify and characterize the biosynthetic machineries responsible for O-Mannosylation in yeast. This research will bring novel knowledge on how yeast orchestrates biological processes and advance our understanding on how essential cellular functions are controlled in these organisms. In addition, this will allow us to extrapolate and understand how O-Mannosylation and O-GlcNAcylation functions in higher organisms (e.g. humans) which will improve our understanding of human diseases including diabetes and cancer. The overall objective is to use biochemical methods and state-of-art technologies (mass spectrometry) to: 1)identify which proteins undergo O-Mannosylation, 2) identify the biosynthetic machineries (enzymes) responsible for O-Mannosylation and 3) transfer knowledge for comparative studies on protein modifications (O-glycosylation) higher eukaryotes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union