Identification and characterization of a Drosophila melanogaster ortholog of human beta1,4-galactosyltransferase VII.

ABSTRACT: Drosophila melanogaster is widely considered to be an attractive model organism for studying the functions of the carbohydrate moieties of glycoconjugates produced by higher eukaryotes. However, the pathways of glycoconjugate biosynthesis are not as well defined in insects as they are in higher eukaryotes. One way to address this problem is to identify genes in the Drosophila genome that might encode relevant functions, express them, and determine the functions of the gene products by direct biochemical assays. In this study, we used this approach to identify a putative Drosophila beta4-galactosyltransferase gene and determine the enzymatic activity of its product. Biochemical assays demonstrated that this gene product could transfer galactose from UDP-galactose to a beta-xylosyl acceptor,

SUBMITTER: Vadaie N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3644117 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature