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Abstract
The commonly accepted theory that prokaryotes lack the ability to glycosylate their proteins has been disproved recently. The field of bacterial glycoprotein research is no longer considered novel owing to the rapid progress in analytical technologies and genome sequencing that has been made in the last few years. Enhanced interest in glycoprotein discovery in bacteria can be explained by a proven correlation between the presence of glycosylation and bacterial pathogenicity. Eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms’ features share certain similarities. However, with respect to inherent differences between these two distinct domains of life, the use of bioanalytical tools for glycoprotein analysis in eukaryotic systems often needs modification to be applied successfully to bacteria. In this article, we draw attention to the differences between eukaryotic and prokaryotic glycoproteins. We also focus on the main bottlenecks that may be encountered in the search for glycosylation in concrete bacterium and outline a possible work-flow for the exploration of glycoproteins in bacteria.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Ales Tichy for his critical reading of this review and useful comments on the content of review itself.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This work was financially supported by Ministry of Education No. MSMT0021627502 and No. ME08105, Ministry of Defence, Czech Republic FVZ0000604 and MO0FVZ0000501, and Czech Science Foundation No. GA203/09/0857. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.