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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2021.05.28.446191

Sialoglycan microarray encoding reveals differential sialoglycan binding of phylogenetically-related bacterial AB5 toxin B subunits

Abstract

Vertebrate sialic acids (Sias) display much diversity in modifications, linkages and underlying glycans. Slide microarrays allow high-throughput explorations of sialoglycan-protein interactions. A microarray presenting [~]150 structurally-defined sialyltrisaccharides with various Sias linkages and modifications still poses challenges in planning, data sorting, visualization and analysis. To address these issues, we devised a simple 9-digit code for sialyltrisaccharides with terminal Sias and underlying two monosaccharides assigned from the non-reducing end, with three digits assigning a monosaccharide, its modifications, and linkage. Calculations based on the encoding system reveals >113,000 likely linear sialyltrisaccharides in nature. Notably a biantennary N-glycan with two terminal sialyltrisaccharides could thus have >1010 potential combinations and a triantennary N-glycan with three terminal sequences, >1015 potential combinations. While all possibilities likely do not exist in nature, sialoglycans encode enormous diversity. While glycomic approaches are used to probe such diverse sialomes, naturally-occurring bacterial AB5 toxin B subunits are simpler tools to track the dynamic sialome in biological systems. Sialoglycan microarray was utilized to compare sialoglycan-recognizing bacterial toxin B subunits. Unlike the poor correlation between B subunits and species phylogeny, there is stronger correlation with Sia-epitope preferences. Further supporting this pattern, we report a B subunit (YenB) from Yersinia enterocolitica (broad host range) recognizing almost all sialoglycans in the microarray, including 4-O-acetylated-Sias not recognized by a Y. pestis orthologue (YpeB). Differential Sia-binding patterns were also observed with phylogenetically-related B subunits from Escherichia coli (SubB), Salmonella Typhi (PltB), S. Typhimurium (ArtB), extra-intestinal E.coli (EcPltB), Vibrio cholera (CtxB), and cholera family homologue of E. coli (EcxB).

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BibTeXRIS

Sasmal, A., Khan, N., Khedri, Z., Kellman, B. P., Srivastava, S., Verhagen, A., Yu, H., Bruntse, A. B., Diaz, S., Varki, N., Beddoe, T., Paton, A. W., Paton, J. C., Chen, X., Lewis, N. E., Varki, A.. 2021-05-29. Sialoglycan microarray encoding reveals differential sialoglycan binding of phylogenetically-related bacterial AB5 toxin B subunits. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.28.446191

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