Glycoinformatics

Glycoinformatics is a field of bioinformatics that pertains to the study of carbohydrates involved in protein post-translational modification. It broadly includes (but is not restricted to) database, software, and algorithm development for the study of carbohydrate structures, glycoconjugates, enzymatic carbohydrate synthesis and degradation, as well as carbohydrate interactions. Conventional usage of the term does not currently include the treatment of carbohydrates from the better-known nutritive aspect.

Issues to consider

File:ArabinoXylanBranchingSequence.PNG molecule.Dervilly-Pinel G, et al. (2004). Carbohydrate Polymers 55:171–177. The carbohydrate structure is expressed as a sequence of numbers representing the branches in the main chain. As the complexity of the chain increases, the numerical representation of the carbohydrate becomes more complex.]]

Even though glycosylation is the most common form of protein modification, with highly complex carbohydrate structures, the bioinformatics on glycome is still very poor.Helenius A, Aebi M (2001) Intracellular

functions of N-linked glycans. Science 291:2364–2369Kikuchi N, et al. (2005). Bioinformatics 21:1717–1718. http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/8/1717

Unlike proteins and nucleic acids which are linear, carbohydrates are often branched and extremely complex.Seeberger PH (2005). Nature 437:1239. For instance, just four sugars can be strung together to form more than 5 million different types of carbohydratesService RF (2001). Science 291:805-806. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5505/805a or nine different sugars may be assembled into 15 million possible four-sugar-chains.Dove A (2001). Nature Biotechnology 19:913-917. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/w3034/LACpapers/bittersweetNatBiot01.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100629060647/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/w3034/LACpapers/bittersweetNatBiot01.pdf |date=2010-06-29 }}

Also, the number of simple sugars that make up glycans is more than the number of nucleotides that make up DNA or RNA. Therefore, it is more computationally expensive to evaluate their structures.von der Lieth CW, et al. (2011). EUROCarbDB: An open-access platform for glycoinformatics. Glycobiology 21:4:493–502

One of the main constrains in the glycoinformatics is the difficulty of representing sugars in the sequence form especially due to their branching nature. Owing to the lack of a genetic blue print, carbohydrates do not have a "fixed" sequence. Instead, the sequence is largely determined by the presence of a variety of enzymes, their kinetic differences and variations in the biosynthetic micro-environment of the cells. This increases the complexity of analysis and experimental reproducibility of the carbohydrate structure of interest.Lutteke T. (2012). The use of glycoinformatics in glycochemistry. Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 8:915–929. doi:10.3762/bjoc.8.104 It is for this reason that carbohydrates are often considered as the "information poor" molecules.

Databases

Table of major glyco-databases.Aoki-Kinoshita KF. (2011). [http://www.beilstein-institut.de/download/383/aoki_kinoshita.pdf Introduction to Glycoinformatics And Computational Applications]. Beilstein-Institut. (PDF 1.57 MB)Egorova K.S., Toukach Ph.V. (2018). Glycoinformatics: bridging isolated islands in the sea of data. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 57:14986-14990 | doi:10.1002/anie.201803576

class="wikitable"
DatabaseDescriptionURL
[http://www.glycome-db.org/ GlycomeDB (outdated)]Portal for glycan structures that have been integrated from several of the major glycan-related databases.http://www.glycome-db.org
GLYCOSCIENCES.deOne of the earliest databases of glycan structure data, also includes NMR data and literature references.https://web.archive.org/web/20180521104202/http://www.glycosciences.de/
Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG)Glycan structures, glycan binding affinity data, glycan profiling data from MALDI-TOF analysis, knock-out mouse phenotype data and glyco-enzyme expression data.http://www.functionalglycomics.org
Japanese Consortium for Glycobiology and Glycotechnology Database (JCGGDB)A comprehensive database portal for major glyco- related databases in Japan, including mass spectral data of glycan profiles, lectin array data, glycoproteindata, glycogene information including disease information, etc.http://jcggdb.jp
KEGG GLYCANGlycan structures and their pathway data, including glycogene information as organized by the KEGGORTHOLOGY.http://www.genome.jp/kegg/glycan/
[https://glyconnect.expasy.org GlyConnect]

|Curated glycomic and glycoproteomic structural and site information based on published data in scientific journal.{{Cite journal|last1=Alocci|first1=Davide|last2=Mariethoz|first2=Julien|last3=Gastaldello|first3=Alessandra|last4=Gasteiger|first4=Elisabeth|last5=Karlsson|first5=Niclas G.|last6=Kolarich|first6=Daniel|last7=Packer|first7=Nicolle H.|last8=Lisacek|first8=Frédérique|date=February 2019|title=GlyConnect: Glycoproteomics Goes Visual, Interactive, and Analytical|url=https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00766|journal=Journal of Proteome Research|language=en|volume=18|issue=2|pages=664–677|doi=10.1021/acs.jproteome.8b00766|pmid=30574787|issn=1535-3893|hdl=10072/382780|s2cid=58570954 |hdl-access=free}}

|https://glyconnect.expasy.org

[https://unicarb-db.expasy.org/ UniCarb-DB]Curated tandem MS spectra with associated glycan structures.{{Citation|last1=Lisacek|first1=Frederique|title=Databases and Associated Tools for Glycomics and Glycoproteomics|date=2017|url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-4939-6493-2_18|work=High-Throughput Glycomics and Glycoproteomics|volume=1503|pages=235–264|editor-last=Lauc|editor-first=Gordan|place=New York, NY|publisher=Springer New York|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-1-4939-6493-2_18|isbn=978-1-4939-6491-8|access-date=2021-02-05|last2=Mariethoz|first2=Julien|last3=Alocci|first3=Davide|last4=Rudd|first4=Pauline M.|last5=Abrahams|first5=Jodie L.|last6=Campbell|first6=Matthew P.|last7=Packer|first7=Nicolle H.|last8=Ståhle|first8=Jonas|last9=Widmalm|first9=Göran|pmid=27743371|editor2-last=Wuhrer|editor2-first=Manfred|url-access=subscription}}https://unicarb-db.expasy.org
[https://unicarb-dr.glycosmos.org UniCarb-DR]

|Public repository for tandem MS spectra with associated glycan structures for MIRAGE compatible submission of glycomic data for supplementing glycomic publications.{{Cite journal|last1=Rojas-Macias|first1=Miguel A.|last2=Mariethoz|first2=Julien|last3=Andersson|first3=Peter|last4=Jin|first4=Chunsheng|last5=Venkatakrishnan|first5=Vignesh|last6=Aoki|first6=Nobuyuki P.|last7=Shinmachi|first7=Daisuke|last8=Ashwood|first8=Christopher|last9=Madunic|first9=Katarina|last10=Zhang|first10=Tao|last11=Miller|first11=Rebecca L.|date=December 2019|title=Towards a standardized bioinformatics infrastructure for N- and O-glycomics|journal=Nature Communications|language=en|volume=10|issue=1|pages=3275|doi=10.1038/s41467-019-11131-x|pmid=31332201|pmc=6796180|bibcode=2019NatCo..10.3275R|issn=2041-1723|doi-access=free}}

|https://unicarb-dr.glycosmos.org

[https://wiki.glygen.org/index.php/GlyGen_Wikipedia GlyGen]Retrieves information from multiple international data sources and integrates and harmonizes data for glycoconjugates and carbohydrates. The web portal provides an easy starting point for users to search for information regarding protein glycosylation, glycan occurrence, glycosylation in diseases etc.https://www.glygen.org/
[http://csdb.glycoscience.ru/database Carbohydrate Structure Database (CSDB)]Curated structural, bibliographic, taxonomical, NMR and other data on carbohydrates from prokaryotes, plants, and fungi.http://csdb.glycoscience.ru
[https://glytoucan.org GlyTouCan]

|GlyTouCan is an international repository that assigns unique accession numbers to glycan structure.{{Cite journal|last1=Tiemeyer|first1=Michael|last2=Aoki|first2=Kazuhiro|last3=Paulson|first3=James|last4=Cummings|first4=Richard D.|last5=York|first5=William S.|last6=Karlsson|first6=Niclas G.|last7=Lisacek|first7=Frederique|last8=Packer|first8=Nicolle H.|last9=Campbell|first9=Matthew P.|last10=Aoki|first10=Nobuyuki P.|last11=Fujita|first11=Akihiro|title=GlyTouCan: an accessible glycan structure repository|journal=Glycobiology|year=2017|volume=27|issue=10|pages=915–919|doi=10.1093/glycob/cwx066|issn=1460-2423|pmc=5881658|pmid=28922742}}

|https://glytoucan.org/

References