Glycomics and Glycoproteomics

The term “glycomics” currently describes studies designed to define the complete repertoire of glycans that a cell or tissue produces under specified conditions of time, location, and environment. “Glycoproteomics” describes this glycome as it appears on the cellular proteome. Glycoproteomics determines which sites on each glycoprotein of a cell are glycosylated and ideally includes the identification and quantitation of each glycan structure at each site on the heterogeneous glycoforms in the cell. This complexity makes glycomics and glycoproteomics both exciting and daunting. Because neither the proteome nor the transcriptome can accurately predict such a moving target, the glycome and glycoproteome must be analyzed directly, and the techniques used to characterize the glycome and glycoproteome are described in this chapter. Analyses of glycolipids and free glycans are described in other chapters.