Activated hexosamines from chitin for production of important oligosaccharides

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): UDP-GlcNAc and UDP-GalNAc comprise the core structures of glycans in glycoproteins and glycolipids. Oligosaccharides containing N-acetyl-hexosamines involved in various biological process, including microbial infection,toxin entry, cancer cell metastasis. They are the key building blocks for human milk oligosaccharides, blood antigens, and other important oligosaccharides. Oligosaccharides with core structures containing these sugars are needed for investigating cell signaling processes and metabolic regulation; these oligosaccharides have intensively been investigated as antimicrobial agents and prospective anticancer vaccines. The limiting factor in the development of these applications is the high production cost andlow availability of the UDP-GlcNAc and UDP-GalNAc building blocks. Cost factors include a lack of effective enzymatic systems for making these activated sugars, extensive purification steps, and the cost of nucleoside triphosphates. Here we propose t