This book presents the latest breakthrough results in glycobiology regarding the roles of glycans in relation to quality control and transport of protein, the immune system, viral infection, stem cells, the neural system, and various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, muscular dystrophy, and schizophrenia. Although glycoscience has long been regarded as a very specialized field with no simple analytical method, the recent explosive progress in research continues to provide limitless evidence that glycan chains are the key component in various biological phenomena. Cell surface glycans, for example, change with developmental stages or environmental conditions and thus represent a "face" of the cell that is utilized for identification of iPS and ES cells and as biomarkers in diagnosis or detection of cancer. This book comprises 17 chapters, each of which poses outstanding "glyco-related" questions enabling non-specialists to have a clearer idea about what the future direction for further investigation of glycans in their own research fields will be. Also including basic information to understand the nature of glycans, this title serves as an excellent "textbook" for researchers in diverse research fields who are not familiar with, but nevertheless interested in, glycan chains or sugar chains.

This book presents the state of the art in glycoscience and proposes a road map for the coming decade, focusing on the potential of glycoscience research to shed light on important basic science issues and give rise to exciting new applications, especially in the field of diagnosis and therapeutics. Individual sections offer in-depth coverage of various topics relating to glycans and biopharmaceuticals, glycans in medical science and medicine, glycan technologies, glycans in food and nutrients, and glycan-related materials and their uses. In addition, the book presents an exemplary training course on glycomics and highlights educational and analytical web resources, and also includes glossaries and boxes summarizing key facts to ensure ease of understanding for non-expert readers and students. Written by more than 150 active participants in the Japan Consortium for Glycobiology and Glycotechnology (JCGG), whose goal is to promote the development of interdisciplinary glycoscience and establish a global network in the field, it is a valuable resource for students, postdocs, and researchers in the life sciences as well as for stakeholders and professionals in government, funding agencies and industry.

The LEC strain of rats, which spontaneously develop acute hepatitis as sociated with jaundice, chronic hepatitis, and ultimately hepatocellular carcinomas, was established by scientists in Sapporo, Japan. Careful ob servation and breeding led to the initial discovery of this characteristic, inherited liver disease in rats. Subsequent collaboration between scientists in Sapporo and other centers has revealed an autosomal recessive nature of inheritance, along with a variety of histopathological and biochemical findings. The causative mechanism(s) underlying this abnormality remained a mystery for some time, providing a challenge for many scientists who were attracted to the quest for clues to this enigma. In particular, the mech anism of spontaneous development of hepatocellular carcinomas in rats overcoming the acute phase of hepatitis and surviving with chronic hepatitis proved extremely interesting, because the involvement of a causative virus had been excluded in the early stages of investigation. Professor Michio Mori of Sapporo Medical College played a key role in the study of LEC rats, especially in the elucidation of the pathogenesis of hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma. He is one of the editors of this monograph which is composed of original contributions by the many scientists who have carried out their own studies on LEC rats. Of the various histopathological and biochemical alterations which have been reported, some are clearly secondary or tertiary events sequential to the primary change caused by gene mutation."

The aim of this book is to provide experimental protocols covering many aspects of glycobiology, glycotechnology, and chemistry: biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, genetics, physiology, and medicine. The protocols are all self-contained descriptions of the equipment and reagents needed, followed by details of the experimental procedure.

In the post-genomic era, glycobiology is coming of age because more than half of proteins are glycosylated and the importance of sugar chains in various fields of life science research cannot be disregarded. Many scientists had not entered this area because glycobiology and glycoscience used to be considered difficult fields. This book, therefore, is presented much like a cookbook which can help scientists in fields other than glycobiology and glycoscience carry out research more easily.

The aim of this book is to provide experimental protocols covering many aspects of glycobiology, glycotechnology, and chemistry: biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, genetics, physiology, and medicine. The protocols are all self-contained descriptions of the equipment and reagents needed, followed by details of the experimental procedure.

In the post-genomic era, glycobiology is coming of age because more than half of proteins are glycosylated and the importance of sugar chains in various fields of life science research cannot be disregarded. Many scientists had not entered this area because glycobiology and glycoscience used to be considered difficult fields. This book, therefore, is presented much like a cookbook which can help scientists in fields other than glycobiology and glycoscience carry out research more easily.

The aim of the book is to provide a succinct overview of the current status of glycoscience from both basic biological and medical points of view and to propose future directions, in order to facilitate further integrations of glycoscience with other fields in biological and medical studies. Glycans (carbohydrate oligomers) are the so-called "building blocks" of carbohydrates, nucleic acids, proteins and lipids and play major roles in many biological phenomena as well as in various pathophysiological processes. However, this area of glycoscience has been neglected from the research community because glycan structures are very complex and functionally diverse and as compared to proteins and nucleic acids simple tools for the amplification, sequencing and auto-synthesis of glycans are not available. Many scientists in other fields of research have now realized that glycosylation, i.e. the addition of glycans to a protein backbone, is the most abundant post translational modification reactions and is an important field of research and sometimes they require a glycobiology and/or glycochemistry approach to be used. It is still difficult, however, for non-expert researchers to use these techniques. This book provides numerous but simple overviews of current topics and protocols for the experiments. The book is aimed at university students and above, including non-experts in the field of glycoscience.