Conservation of anatomically restricted glycosaminoglycan structures in divergent nematode species.

ABSTRACT: Heparan sulfates (HS) are glycosaminoglycans of the extracellular matrices and characterized by complex modification patterns owing to sulfations, epimerization, and acetylation. Distinct HS modification patterns have been shown to modulate protein-protein interactions during development in general and of the nervous system in particular. This has led to the heparan sulfate code hypothesis, which posits that specifically modified HS epitopes are distributed in a tissue and cell-specific fashion to orchestrate neural circuit formation. Whether an HS code exists in vivo, how specific or how evolutionarily conserved the anatomical distribution of an HS code may be has remained unknown. Here we conduct a systematic comparison of HS modification patterns in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans u

SUBMITTER: Attreed M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5018047 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature