The Functional Glycomics Gateway is a one-stop online resource designed to keep you in touch with the latest and hottest research in glycobiology, brought to you by Nature Publishing Group in collaboration with the Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG). Below we highlight a selection of what’s new this month.

Featured Articles

Each month we showcase two exciting new glycobiology articles from the current literature. Nature Publishing Group papers are available free for 3 months and the Editor’s reviews are free indefinitely.

Intracellular glycosylation: A QUICtag for GlcNAc

A new combination of tagging, isotope labeling and peptide fragmentation by electron transfer enables the analysis of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) glycosylation dynamics and identification of GlcNAcylated protein sites.

Nat. Chem. Biol. 3, 339-348 (2007)

DC-SIGN signaling: Good receptor, bad receptor

The DC-SIGN receptor can promote two distinct cellular responses when activated: increasing NF-κB activity through acetylation by stimulating the Ras/Raf-1 pathway, and Rho GTPase activation through binding to the Rho GEF LARG.

Immunity 26, 605-616 (2007)

The CFG is a large research initiative composed of more than 300 participating investigators and seven scientific core laboratories. Funded by NIGMS in 2001 to elucidate the roles of carbohydrate-protein interactions in cell communication at the cell surface, the scientific core laboratories produce resources and services for investigators performing experiments that address the goals of the CFG. Data produced by the scientific cores are accessible from the Functional Glycomics Gateway. Specialty databases for glycan-binding proteins, glycan structures and glycosyltransferases are also available.