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Alimentary Glycoscience

Carbohydrates or glycans coat every living cell and are therefore involved in the interactions that occur between cells. Inter-cellular communication is an essential part of many biological processes and is also perturbed in many diseases. In the gut, cell surface glycans and their corresponding binding proteins (lectins) play a critical role in host-microbial interactions and communications, during both symbiotic colonization of the gut and invasion by pathogenic species.

Alimentary Microbiology and Glycosciences are each rapidly advancing research fields in their own right. However, together these two disciplines can provide a better understanding of both symbiotic and pathogenic relationships between hosts and microbes in the gut. This will potentially lead to novel diagnostic markers, prophylactics, therapeutics and nutraceuticals for gastro-intestinal health.

The Alimentary Glycoscience Research Cluster (AGRC) is an inter-institutional, multi-disciplinary consortium of academic and industrial researchers funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), which is exploring the role of gut glycosylation in host-microbe interactions. The AGRC team includes Irish and international researchers from both alimentary microbiology and glycoscience fields, who bring their complementary skills to bear on this important research theme.

The focus of the AGRC is:

• To study the glycomic responses of gut epithelial cells to colonisation with selected commensal and pathogenic microorganisms and to the presence of milk oligosaccharides, using existing tools for glycoanalysis, lectin analysis, and transcriptomics.
• To develop innovative, high throughput analytical platforms for glycan analysis and to develop mimics and analogues of host glycans and the corresponding lectins involved in these interactions.

This coordinated effort will build technological capacity and commercial opportunities in an area of high scientific and commercial potential, particularly in the biopharmaceutical, bioanalytical, dairy and food sectors.

For further information, contact the Cluster Leader:
Professor Lokesh Joshi,
Stokes Professor of Glycosciences,
National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science,
National University of Ireland, Galway
Lokesh.Joshinuigalway.ie

This video was developed as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration with the System Dynamics Research Group (SDRG) at NUI, Galway. The aim of the SFI-funded SDRG is to design novel computational methods for simulating, visualising,and generating insight into complex biological, social, and economic systems.

 

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