Glycosylation Summary

Recombinant human proteins expressed in human cells are distinct from those produced by non-human cell expression systems. In particular, human proteins undergo a variety of highly specific post-translational modifications (PTMs), glycosylation being one of the best-known examples.

Recombinant proteins are dependent on the glycosylation machinery of the cell line to determine what glycan structures are attached. Different cell lines attach different glycan structures, some of which are antigenic to humans, whilst E. coli does not attach glycans at all, leading to the possibility of exposed antigenic epitopes and protein misfolding.

The following table summarises the differences between Symansis' hcx proteins and the theoretical unglycosylated proteins. Note that the presence of N-linked and/or O-linked glycans is experimentally determined - see FAQs for further information.

Click here to download a PDF version of the Glycosylation Summary