Progress of Sugar Kinase Activity Assay Methods

Sugar kinases are enzymes that transfer phosphate groups from ATPs to sugars to form sugar phosphates,which can be further converted into sugar nucleotides(NDP-sugars),providing sugar donors for carbohydrates synthesis in nature.Sugar kinases not only play critical roles in a variety of physiological and pathological processes in plants,animals and microbes,but are also catalysts of carbohydrate synthesis and targets for drug development.Studies on the activity of sugar kinases are of both theoretical and practical significance.However,since sugar phosphates,the product of the reactions catalyzed by sugar kinases,normally do not contain groups easy to detect,direct monitor of their production becomes difficult.Therefore,many methods have been developed for sugar kinase activity assay.This paper reviews the up-to-date techniques for sugar kinase activity assay.