Glycoprotein Folding

Abstract

N-glycosylation is the most drastic and frequent modification of secretory pathway proteins. N-glycans fulfill several biological and structural roles. In the early secretory pathway, these moieties are exploited as an information platform of the folding status and age of glycoproteins. A specialized machinery of chaperones, lectins, glycosidases, and glycosyltransferases generates and interprets this information to ensure a productive folding pathway or eliminate misfolded species.