The preparation, modification and hepatoprotective activity of chitooligosaccharides: A review

Chitooligosaccharides (COS) has attracted increasing attention due to the various promising bioactivities, tremendous potential in agricultural, environmental nutritional and functional food fields. COS as the major degradation product from chitosan or chitin is prepared via enzymatic, chemical and physical methods. Further obtained COS generally possesses different structural characteristics, such as molecular weight, degree of acetylation and degree of polymerization. Innovations into COS modification has also broadened application of COS in nutrition as well as in agricultural safety. Due to the affinity between structure and bioactivity, diversity of structural characteristics endows COS with various bioactivities like antitumor, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, especially hepatoprotective activity. Therefore, the present review narrates the recent developments in COS physicochemical properties, while paying considerable attention to preparation strategies of COS and their advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, the modification of COS is also discussed including alkylation, quaternization and sulfation, herein the structure-activity relationship of COS was highlighted. Additionally, we summarize the latest research on hepatoprotective activity and mechanisms of COS. Eventually, the future directions of research on COS were discussed, which would provide a new appreciation for the future use of COS.

Green-Chemical Strategies for Production of Tailor-Made Chitooligosaccharides with Enhanced Biological Activities

Chitooligosaccharides (COSs) are b-1,4-linked homo-oligosaccharides of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) or glucosamine (GlcN), and also include hetero-oligosaccharides composed of GlcNAc and GlcN. These sugars are of practical importance because of their various biological activities, such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antitumor activities, as well as triggering the innate immunity in plants. The reported data on bioactivities of COSs used to contain some uncertainties or contradictions, because the experiments were conducted with poorly characterized COS mixtures. Recently, COSs have been satisfactorily characterized with respect to their structures, especially the degree of polymerization (DP) and degree of N-acetylation (DA); thus, the structure-bioactivity relationship of COSs has become more unambiguous. To date, various green-chemical strategies involving enzymatic synthesis of COSs with designed sequences and desired biological activities have been developed. The enzymatic strategies could involve transglycosylation or glycosynthase reactions using reducing end-activated sugars as the donor substrates and chitinase/chitosanase and their mutants as the biocatalysts. Site-specific chitin deacetylases were also proposed to be applicable for this purpose. Furthermore, to improve the yields of the COS products, metabolic engineering techniques could be applied. The above-mentioned approaches will provide the opportunity to produce tailor-made COSs, leading to the enhanced utilization of chitin biomass.

N-acetyl-d-glucosamine-based oligosaccharides from chitin: Enzymatic production, characterization and biological activities

Chitin, the second most abundant biopolymer, possesses diverse applications in the food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries due to its functional properties. However, the potential applications of chitin are limited owing to its high crystallinity and low solubility. N-acetyl chitooligosaccharides and lacto-N-triose II, the two types of GlcNAc-based oligosaccharides, can be obtained from chitin by enzymatic methods. With their lower molecular weights and improved solubility, these two types of GlcNAc-based oligosaccharides display more various beneficial health effects when compared to chitin. Among their abilities, they have exhibited antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, antimicrobial, and plant elicitor activities as well as immunomodulatory and prebiotic effects, which suggests they have the potential to be utilized as food additives, functional daily supplements, drug precursors, elicitors for plants, and prebiotics. This review comprehensively covers the enzymatic methods used for the two types of GlcNAc-based oligosaccharides production from chitin by chitinolytic enzymes. Moreover, current advances in the structural characterization and biological activities of these two types of GlcNAc-based oligosaccharides are summarized in the review. We also highlight current problems in the production of these oligosaccharides and trends in their development, aiming to offer some directions for producing functional oligosaccharides from chitin.

Analysis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry: An update for 2019-2020

This review is the tenth update of the original article published in 1999 on the application of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry to the analysis of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates and brings coverage of the literature to the end of 2020. Also included are papers that describe methods appropriate to analysis by MALDI, such as sample preparation techniques, even though the ionization method is not MALDI. The review is basically divided into three sections: (1) general aspects such as theory of the MALDI process, matrices, derivatization, MALDI imaging, fragmentation, quantification and the use of arrays. (2) Applications to various structural types such as oligo- and polysaccharides, glycoproteins, glycolipids, glycosides and biopharmaceuticals, and (3) other areas such as medicine, industrial processes and glycan synthesis where MALDI is extensively used. Much of the material relating to applications is presented in tabular form. The reported work shows increasing use of incorporation of new techniques such as ion mobility and the enormous impact that MALDI imaging is having. MALDI, although invented nearly 40 years ago is still an ideal technique for carbohydrate analysis and advancements in the technique and range of applications show little sign of diminishing.

Plant Chitinase Mutants as the Catalysts for Chitooligosaccharide Synthesis Using the Sugar Oxazoline Derivatives

Sugar oxazolines, (GlcNAc)_n-oxa (n = 2, 3, 4, and 5), were synthesized from a mixture of chitooligosaccharides, (GlcNAc)_n (n = 2, 3, 4, and 5), and utilized for synthesis of (GlcNAc)₇ with higher elicitor activity using plant chitinase mutants as the catalysts. From isothermal titration calorimetry, the binding affinity of (GlcNAc)₂-oxa toward an inactive mutant obtained from Arabidopsis thaliana GH18 chitinase was found to be higher than those of the other (GlcNAc)_n-oxa (n = 3, 4, and 5). To synthesize (GlcNAc)₇, the donor/acceptor substrates with different size combinations, (GlcNAc)₂-oxa/(GlcNAc)₅ (1), (GlcNAc)₃-oxa/(GlcNAc)₄ (2), (GlcNAc)₄-oxa/(GlcNAc)₃ (3), and (GlcNAc)₅-oxa/(GlcNAc)₂ (4), were incubated with hypertransglycosylating mutants of GH18 chitinases from A. thaliana and Cycas revoluta. The synthetic activities of these plant chitinase mutants were lower than that of a mutant of Bacillus circulans chitinase A1. Nevertheless, in the plant chitinase mutants, the synthetic efficiency of combination (1) was higher than those of the other combinations (2), (3), and (4), suggesting that the synthetic reaction is mostly dominated by the binding affinities of (GlcNAc)_n-oxa. In contrast, the Bacillus enzyme mutant with a different subsite arrangement synthesized (GlcNAc)₇ from combination (1) in the lowest efficiency. Donor/acceptor-size dependency of the enzymatic synthesis appeared to be strongly related to the subsite arrangement of the enzyme used as the catalyst. The A. thaliana chitinase mutant was found to be useful when combination (1) is employed for the substrates.

Reprint of: Advanced glycosidases as ingenious biosynthetic instruments

Until recently, glycosidases, naturally hydrolyzing carbohydrate-active enzymes, have found few synthetic applications in industry, being primarily used for cleaving unwanted carbohydrates. With the establishment of glycosynthase and transglycosidase technology by genetic engineering, the view of glycosidases as industrial biotechnology tools has started to change. Their easy production, affordability, robustness, and substrate versatility, added to the possibility of controlling undesired side hydrolysis by enzyme engineering, have made glycosidases competitive synthetic tools. Current promising applications of engineered glycosidases include the production of well-defined chitooligomers, precious galactooligosaccharides or specialty chemicals such as glycosylated flavonoids. Other synthetic pathways leading to human milk oligosaccharides or remodeled antibodies are on the horizon. This work provides an overview of the synthetic achievements to date for glycosidases, emphasizing the latest trends and outlining possible developments in the field.

The GH19 Engineering Database: Sequence diversity, substrate scope, and evolution in glycoside hydrolase family 19

The glycoside hydrolase 19 (GH19) is a bifunctional family of chitinases and endolysins, which have been studied for the control of plant fungal pests, the recycle of chitin biomass, and the treatment of multi-drug resistant bacteria. The GH19 domain-containing sequences (22,461) were divided into a chitinase and an endolysin subfamily by analyzing sequence networks, guided by taxonomy and the substrate specificity of characterized enzymes. The chitinase subfamily was split into seventeen groups, thus extending the previous classification. The endolysin subfamily is more diverse and consists of thirty-four groups. Despite their sequence diversity, twenty-six residues are conserved in chitinases and endolysins, which can be distinguished by two specific sequence patterns at six and four positions, respectively. Their location outside the catalytic cleft suggests a possible mechanism for substrate specificity that goes beyond the direct interaction with the substrate. The evolution of the GH19 catalytic domain was investigated by large-scale phylogeny. The inferred evolutionary history and putative horizontal gene transfer events differ from previous works. While no clear patterns were detected in endolysins, chitinases varied in sequence length by up to four loop insertions, causing at least eight distinct presence/absence loop combinations. The annotated GH19 sequences and structures are accessible via the GH19 Engineering Database (GH19ED, https://gh19ed.biocatnet.de). The GH19ED has been developed to support the prediction of substrate specificity and the search for novel GH19 enzymes from neglected taxonomic groups or in regions of the sequence space where few sequences have been described yet.

Progress and challenges in the synthesis of sequence controlled polysaccharides

The sequence, length and substitution of a polysaccharide influence its physical and biological properties. Thus, sequence controlled polysaccharides are important targets to establish structure-properties correlations. Polymerization techniques and enzymatic methods have been optimized to obtain samples with well-defined substitution patterns and narrow molecular weight distribution. Chemical synthesis has granted access to polysaccharides with full control over the length. Here, we review the progress towards the synthesis of well-defined polysaccharides. For each class of polysaccharides, we discuss the available synthetic approaches and their current limitations.

Advanced glycosidases as ingenious biosynthetic instruments

Until recently, glycosidases, naturally hydrolyzing carbohydrate-active enzymes, have found few synthetic applications in industry, being primarily used for cleaving unwanted carbohydrates. With the establishment of glycosynthase and transglycosidase technology by genetic engineering, the view of glycosidases as industrial biotechnology tools has started to change. Their easy production, affordability, robustness, and substrate versatility, added to the possibility of controlling undesired side hydrolysis by enzyme engineering, have made glycosidases competitive synthetic tools. Current promising applications of engineered glycosidases include the production of well-defined chitooligomers, precious galactooligosaccharides or specialty chemicals such as glycosylated flavonoids. Other synthetic pathways leading to human milk oligosaccharides or remodeled antibodies are on the horizon. This work provides an overview of the synthetic achievements to date for glycosidases, emphasizing the latest trends and outlining possible developments in the field.

Aqueous One-pot Synthesis of Glycopolymers by Glycosidase-catalyzed Glycomonomer Synthesis Using 4,6-Dimetoxy Triazinyl Glycoside Followed by Radical Polymerization

Glycopolymers have attracted increased attention as functional polymeric materials, and simple methods for synthesizing glycopolymers remain needed. This paper reports the aqueous one-pot and chemoenzymatic synthesis of four types of glycopolymers via two reactions: the β-galactosidase-catalyzed glycomonomer synthesis using 4,6-dimetoxy triazinyl β-D-galactopyranoside and hydroxy group-containing (meth)acrylamide and (meth)acrylate derivatives as the activated glycosyl donor substrate and as the glycomonomer precursors, respectively, followed by radical copolymerization of the resulting glycomonomer and excess glycomonomer precursor without isolating the glycomonomers. The resulting glycopolymers bearing galactose moieties exhibited specific and strong interactions with the lectin peanut agglutinin as glycoclusters.

Review: Advances in preparation of chitooligosaccharides with heterogeneous sequences and their bioactivity

Chitooligosaccharides has attracted increasing attention due to their diverse bioactivities and potential application. Previous studies on the bioactivity of chitooligosaccharides were mostly carried out using a mixture. The structure-function relationship of chitooligosaccharides is not clear. Recently, it is confirmed that chitooligosaccharides with different degrees of polymerization play different roles in many bioactivities. However, heterogeneous chitooligosaccharides with a single degree of polymerization is still a mixture of many uncertain sequences and it is difficult to determine which structure is responsible for biological effects. Therefore, an interesting and challenging field of studying chitooligosaccharides with heterogeneous sequences has emerged. Herein, we reviewed the current methods for preparing heterogeneous chitooligosaccharides, including chemical synthesis, separation techniques and enzymatic methods. Advances in the bioactivities of chitooligosaccharides with heterogeneous sequences are also reviewed.

One-pot chemoenzymatic synthesis of glycopolymers from unprotected sugars via glycosidase-catalysed glycosylation using triazinyl glycosides

Glycopolymers were successfully synthesised from unprotected sugars in aqueous media via a one-pot chemoenzymatic process of three reactions; the direct synthesis of 4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl glycosides from unprotected sugars, a glycosidase-catalysed glycosylation using the triazinyl glycoside to afford glycomonomers and a radical polymerisation. The resulting glycopolymers exhibited specific interactions with the corresponding lectin as glycoclusters.