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GlycoShape

@glycoshape.org
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Glycan 3D database and toolbox for the reconstruction of glycoproteins from the RCSB PDB and EMBL-EBI AlphaFold repositories or own. Find us at glycoshape.org. Curated by head chef @elisafadda.bsky.social and sous chef @ojas-singh.bsky.social

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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 25/09/2026
Pls note that from now on, in case you use tools that require access to an extended dataset (Level 2), we ask you to acknowledge our terms and conditions. Level 2 conformers are under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 See glycoshape.org/licensing for details
Screenshot of the new licensing page, listing all terms and conditions
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 25/09/2026
Refreshed ReGlyco Filter in bioRxiv 🧪(doi.org/10.64898/202...) in view of the upcoming Protein Design Competition on Monday 28/09 🎉🔥 proteinbase.com/competitions... Each week a new target and if it's a glycoprotein, glycoshape.org and ReGlyco Filter can help screen and optimise your binder design
NiV G was the target of the Adaptyv Bio Protein Design Competition 2025. Structure of the Nipah Virus Glycoprotein (NiV-G) homotetramer (aa 92-602) reconstructed from cryo-EM structures (PDB 7TXZ and 7TY0) bound to broadly neutralising antibody nAH1.3 Fabs(Wang et al. 2022) (not shown). Static (single) glycans 3D structures (shown with sticks in blue) were reconstructed with GlycoShape ReGlyco(Ives et al. 2024). The glycoform selection was guided by glycoproteomics analysis(Hawkins et al. 2025). The visible six glycan sites on chains A, B and D are mapped onto the structure, while glycans on chain C are not labelled for clarity
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 04/09/2026
🚨 New version of GlycoShape is now live at glycoshape.org 🥳 Powered by crabWURCS everything runs on your browser and while you save all you ReGlyco work and go back to it whenever you like 😎 Among other new things: new slick drawer, much easier to use, new slick SNFG representations and new layout
screenshot to represent the new layout of GlycoShape, here the database screen added NEW sticker
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 17/07/2026
Instead of a thread, we have a blog as a tutorial glycoshape.org/blog For any feedback/questions, please feel free to comment below or to quote, we can see both. Happy reading 😎
screenshot of the E05: entry of the Glycoshape blog (dark green background) titles "The glucoside on the LLO and the OST architecture"
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 30/06/2026
Un-crystallisable glyco-complexes anyone? New work led by John Klassen's lab introduces antibody masking-native mass spectrometry (AM-nMS) a spatially resolved assay that allowed us to map glycan binding sites across the SARS-CoV-2 RBD. The results match our MDs! 😜 All details glycoshape.org/blog
screenshot of the E04 new blog entry on https://glycoshape.org/blog titled Let's talk about glycan binding to viral (glyco)proteins
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 19/06/2026
At the bottom of the page you'll also find a subscription option where you can sign up for an email notification when a new post is published 🥳
Screenshot of the bottom of the webpage showing a box where you can put your email to receive notifications when we publish a new blog post
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 19/06/2026
glycoshape.org has now a blog where we discuss (yep you got it) glycans, glycoproteins and fun stuff! Season 1 is out with: Ep01: Why should we care about glycan heterogeneity? Ep02: How can we include glycan heterogeneity in a 3D framework? Ep03: Molecular precision glycoscience: Enter Siglecs
Header of the Blog page on https://glycoshape.org/blog that you can find in the drop-down menu under Resources> Blog
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 09/06/2026
8/10 In the absence of a terminal Sia the Gal of core1 engages in an intramolecular interaction with Trp63 of CR6 (pink in Fig.c and insert), which in turns stabilises the direct contact between the linker and the RAP (red)
from Figure 5 in the paper a) NMR-guided docking structure of the complex between CR5-CR6 (pink) and RAP domain1 (red; PDB: 2fyl). b) Representative structure from the MD simulations of the complex CR5-CR6:RAPd1 with a sialylated core1 (mSTa) O-glycan showing that the O-glycan remains disengaged from the CRs and RAPd1 due to steric hindrance. (c) Representative structure from the MD simulations of the complex CR5-CR6:RAPd1 with an unsialylated core1/T O-glycan showing that the O-glycan interacts with Trp63 of CR6. (insert) Alternative view of (c) displaying the hydrogen bond interactions between the core1/T O-glycan with the Glu23 and Glu30 residues of RAPd1.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 09/06/2026
7/10 But what about the effect of hyposialylation of at C6X(3-5)T*C1 (GALNT11) O-glycans? @silviadandrea.bsky.social ran multiple uncorrelated MD simulations to figure this out using the structure of the RAP/CR5-CR6 complex as a model (PDB 2FYL) with sialylated (and not) core1 at C6-AYP-T-C1
Sequence of the CR5-CR6 double domain with the short C6AYPTC1 linker sequence installed with a core1/T O-glycan with/without sialic acid capping. Intramolecular disulfide bonds are indicated by dashed lines.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 09/06/2026
5/10 SO, does O-glycosylation of CRs influence LRP1 ligand selection and clearance? INDEEDLY it does. O-glycosylation significantly enhances uptake of tau and decreases uptake of Aβ in two cell models, HEK293 and neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells ⬇️🤯
Fig. 2. GALNT11 KO reduces tau and enhances Aβ uptake via LRP1.
(A) HEK-WT, HEK-LRP1, and HEK-LRP1ΔT11 cells were cultured overnight in 96-well plates and, the following day, incubated with indicated Alexa or HiLyte Fluor 488–labeled ligands diluted in complete growth medium for 2 hours at 37°C. Cells were then washed, released, and stained with propidium iodide (PI) before flow cytometric analysis. The median 488-A fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the PI-negative population was background subtracted using MFI values from matched cells cultured without ligand and thereafter normalized to the MFI recorded for HEK-LRP1 cells at the highest concentration of ligand used. Unlabeled RAP at 500 nM concentration was used to suppress LRP-mediated endocytosis. Graphs represent the aggregate of three experiments, one for each of the HEK-LRP1Act, HEK-LRP1Rec#1, and HEK-LRP1Rec#2 cell lines (n = 3 independent clones). (B) Similar to above, SH-SY5YWT and SH-SY5YΔT11 cells were cultured in the presence of 488-labeled ligands for 2 hours (tau and RAP) or 8 hours (Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42) at 37°C before flow cytometric analysis. Each graph represents the aggregate analysis of two experiments comparing SH-SY5YWT to three SH-SY5Y∆T11 clones (n = 3 independent clones). Data are presented as mean ± SD, and the ratio paired t test was used to assess significance (****P < 0.0001, **P < 0.01, and *P < 0.05).
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 09/06/2026
4/10 CRs are O-glycosylated at C6X(3-5)T*C1 by GALNT11, one of 20 GalNAc-transferases that initiate protein GalNAc-type O-glycosylation. O-glycans are present at 13 CR linkers in LRP1 and are hyposialylated
from Figure 4 in the paper, SNFG symbols to represent the O-glycans released from LC-MS glycoprofiling rom two independent batches of purified (F) sLRP1, (G) sLRP1ΔT11
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 09/06/2026
2/10 Background: LRP1 is a l~600 kDa transmembrane receptor that engages > 50 different ligands for clearance from neuronal and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). How this broad ligand selection is accomplished and how it leads to different cellular responses is unclear
Schematic representation of full-coding LRP1, illustrating the ligand-binding CR domains (numbered 1 to 31) within clusters I to IV. All adjacent CRs are separated by short linkers and those linker sequences that adhere to the C6X(3-5)TC1 motif have been indicated by horizontal brackets. Linker O-glycans identified by O-glycoproteomic analyses of various mammalian tissues and cell lines of WT and GALNT11−/− genotype are marked by black (GALNT11 specific), gray (predicted GALNT11 specific), or white (unknown specificity) circles.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/06/2026
7/8 The reflections and analysis in this review are the product of a lot of conversations and reading through the years, but also of practice by the very talented BIOL6105 students (25/26) who test drove the glycoprotein design protocols for one of their assignments
acknolwdgement text highlighted is to thank the very talented MSci students of BIOL6105 Adv Pharmacology at the University of Southampton who test-drove the glycoprotein design protocol as one of their assignments
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/06/2026
6/8 But how can we understand/predict/include glycoheterogeneity in our studies or in the design of glycoprotein biologics? We discuss the hGH design assisted by GlycoShape ⬇️ as an example and recommend the following work when dealing with mucins Chongsaritsinsuk et al, doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Figure 3. (a) Analysis of structures from experiments deposited in the PDB from GlycoNavi (https://glyconavi.org/TCarp/Statistics/) shows that only 6873 proteins contain N-glycans, for a total of 41,951 glycan structures. Of those 51% consist of only one monosaccharide, with less than 2054 structures containing 7 or more monosaccharide units. (b) Qualitative diagram illustrating different dynamic time-scales of biological systems in function of their size. Experiments relevant to structural biology are represented in the graph within their corresponding range of application in space/time. The design of the diagram was inspired by a similar example in Ref. [66] (c) 3D structure of the human growth hormone (hGH) from PDB 1HGU (cyan), with N-glycans at N93, N99, and N104 reconstructed with Re-Glyco Ensemble [67] using 50 frames selected from the MD structural ensemble, rendered with surface and sticks in white. The type of N-glycans are represented by SNFG symbols [41] in 2D and with the corresponding GlyTouCan [42] IDs. (d) An example of the N-glycans repertoire that can be found at highly exposed sites such as N93, N(98)99, N104. The relative populations of the corresponding glycoforms can be determined by glycoproteomics. (e) Relative populations of the N-glycans at different sites introduced by mutagenesis in Ref. [68]. Occupancy is shown in pink and the absence of glycans in grey. The length of the bars correspond to 100%. Glycosylation at positions N98 and N99 is mutually exclusive because of site proximity. (f) Structure of the complex of hGH (cyan) with the hGH receptor (white with transparent surface and cartoons) from PDB 1A22 indicating the surface area where protein–protein interactions occur and that needs to remain unoccupied for function. The orientation of the hGH in 1.c and 1.f is the same. (g) (..)
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/06/2026
4/8 Microheterogeneity (a feature not a bug) modulates glycan-dependent structure and function properties with exceptional dynamisms, allowing to tune them as a dial more than a ON/OFF switch, by glycan types conc gradients. This is critical in tuning properties such as immune response
Figure 2. (a) The three main types of human N-glycans are oligomannose, hybrid and complex. Representative structures are shown with 2D SNFG symbols [41] and corresponding GlyTouCan [42] IDs. Arrows indicate multi-step processes (not direct reactions) occurring in the ER (light blue background) and Golgi (light yellow background), involving numerous enzymes. ERMan-1 (UniProt Q9UKM7) and GNT-1 (UniProt P26572) are shown as the enzymes initiating key steps in N-glycan processing. (b) Man9 N-glycan [3] (mannose in green and GlcNAc in blue sticks) at position N234, chain B, of the SARS-Cov-2 S (WHu-1) trapped inside a pocket upon opening of the RBD chain A (yellow surface). The protein structure is shown as a surface, with Chain A in yellow, B in white and C in pink. All other glycans are not shown for clarity. The 3D structure is from a representative frame from an MD simulation, based on PDB 3VYB, [1]. All other glycans are not shown for clarity. (c) Man5 in FcγRIII (PDB 3SGK) at N40 with the α(1–6) arm trapped in a pocket, exposing the α(1–3) arm to the solvent, leading to a local enrichment in hybrid N-glycans. The 3D structure is from a representative frame from an MD simulation, based on PDB 3SGK, [34]. All other glycans are not shown for clarity. (d) MS spectrum of the recombinant CD52-Fc active fraction (black) overlaid with the spectrum of the inactive fraction (red), which is the most abundant by weight. N-glycan compositions are annotated. (e) Top 10 N-glycan compositions with more than 2.5% relative abundance in active fractions, ordered by increasing m/z (M−H). The fraction in blue is the most active and shows a higher content of sialylated epitopes. (f) Proposed structure of the complex between the HMGB1-Box B (cyan cartoons) and the hyperglycosylated CD52 peptide (green cartoons). (..) Panels d–g are adapted from Ref. [43].
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/06/2026
2/8 Macroheretogeneity refers to the occupancy of glycan sites. We discuss how the sequence determinants for N-glycosylation, and not other sequon-dependent PTMs, requires ‘beyond the sequon’ regulation of macroheterogeneity for with direct implications into glycoproteins structure and function
Figure 1. Glycan macroheterogeneity is encoded in the protein sequence. (a) Bar graph of the amino acid abundance in eukaryotic proteins from the Swiss-Prot dataset (purple bars; number of proteins: 199,526; number of aa: 88,436,717) and the UniProt50 dataset (blue bars; number of proteins: 26, 204,260; number of aa: 8,800,588,153). (b) Average number of consensus sequon for N-glycosylation (N-x-(S/T)), C-mannosylation (W-xx-W/C), and O-fucosylation (C-xx-(S/T)C and C-xxxx-(S/T)C) found in each protein in the Swiss-Prot dataset (purple bars) and the UniProt50 dataset (blue bars). (c) Close-up view of the binding site of the eukaryotic oligosaccharyltransferase (OST; PDB 8AGC), shown with its surface in yellow, bound to the YJR1_N99 substrate peptide shown in cyan, with the backbone in cartoons and side chains in sticks. The peptide sequence is shown in the bottom-left corner. The structure of the complex is from a representative frame from an MD simulation in Ref. [20]. (d) Close-up view of the binding site of the complex between the C-mannosyltransferase (CMT; PDB 7ZLG), shown with its surface in purple, and a substrate peptide, shown in yellow with the backbone in cartoons and side chains in sticks. The peptide sequence is shown in yellow in the bottom-left corner. Molecular rendering was done with VMD [21] (https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/), and statistical data visualisation done with seaborn MD, molecular dynamics; VMD, visual molecular dynamics. (https://seaborn.pydata.org/).
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/06/2026
Glycoheterogeneity is an aspects of glycobiology that most would class into a category between difficult and intolerable, but @benschulz.bsky.social and us love it! So we wrote a whole review in Current Opinion in Structural Biology on it 🧵1/8 ⬇️ doi.org/10.1016/j.sb...
screenshot of the the title of the review "Heterogeneity of glycoproteins: Why does it matter and how to account for it"
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/06/2026
3/4 Accordingly the Van’t Hoff analysis shows that this temperature-enhanced cooperativity is predominantly entropy driven, while the overall gain in binding free energy stands regardless of the order in which the monomers are occupied because of the interlocked architecture
KDE analysis of the binding site volumes along the REMD of the CTB5 bound to one GM1 (rest of the monomers are empty) the change in volume of subunit E is similar to A, despite E is empty.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/06/2026
2/4 In this work ⬇️ we used variable temperature native MS in combination with T replica exchange (REMD) to study cholera toxin B subunit pentamer (CTB5) reveal how binding to one monomer (cyan/GM1 yellow) triggers the prestructuring of the next adjacent (purple) doi.org/10.1021/acs....
CTB5 shown in cartoons (PDB 3CHB starting structure). Subunit A is shown in cyan with surface rendering and it bound to a GM1 oligosaccharide (yellow sticks) in the monomer primary binding site. Adjacent counterclockwise is subunit E (cartoons purple) which binding site 'widens' upon biniding of subunit one through contacts with the 'insertion loop', that pulls the framing loop in green in the right-hand panel
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 24/04/2026
Daily job count is quite high these days after the release of our case study 1 week ago and of the ReGlyco de novo Binder Design Filter notebook ⬇️ doi.org/10.64898/202... and res. therein So exciting to see a growing number of researcher including glycosylation in their studies! 🎉 #glycotime 🧪
Bar graph showing the GlycoShape job count x day in April 2026
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 17/04/2026
6/7 We made a colab notebook demo where users can design ‘mini binders’ against human erythropoietin (hEPO) by integrating GlycoShape with the RFdiffusion3 (RFD3) pipeline (doi.org/10.1101/2025...) from the Institute for Protein Design (IDP) colab.research.google.com/github/Ojas-...
Vignettes showing in four stages the RF3-ReGlyco mini-binder design workflow to hEPO as in the demo. From the left-hand side, the 3D structure of hEPO is selected (yellow cartoons with a transparent molecular surface) as target protein. ReGlyco Ensemble is used to reconstruct the glycoprotein with the desired glycosylation. This process will output the inaccessible surface area due to the presence of glycans (dark red spheres) and the accessible surface area (yellow spheres) that can be targeted for binding, or ‘hotspots’. RF3 is used to design mini-binders. Generated designs are shown in grey cartoons. These designs are filtered by ReGlyco to exclude designs clashing with one or more glycosylation sites: predicted binders are shown in green cartoons (filter passed) and predicted non-binders (filter failed passed) in red cartoons. Mol* (https://molstar.org/) was used for structure rendering.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 17/04/2026
4/7 Enabling rotameric freedom (dunbrack.fccc.edu/lab/bbdep2010) refines the filter, yet still flagged 5 designs with irresolvable clashes in the Boltz-2 predicted structures. We rebuild all 5 complexes with the AF3 server (no glycans) and were able to obtain an alternative clear pose only for 1 ⬇️
7th highest scoring binder id (submitted pose): Soft-Panda-Snow (149 aa). This pose failed the ReGlyco filter, clashing with glycan at N529. i. 7th highest scoring binder id: Soft-Panda-Snow (149 aa). Alternative pose obtained with AF3 (no glycans).
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 17/04/2026
3/7 We used GlycoShape ReGlyco and the new ReGlyco Rotamer tools to filter in-block the 1,201 results. This exercise flagged 11% of non-binders prior to experiment in approx 3 hrs on a dual-core CPU, a negligible computational overhead
Results of the Adaptyv Bio binder design competition without ReGlyco filtering are shown in the top bar. The middle bar shows the effect of ReGlyco filtering in flagging designs for clashes with one or more glycosylation sites (red) and pass (green). The bottom bar indicates the effect of the refinement with ReGlyco Rotamer, which introduces flexibility in the Asn sidechain of the aglycon. In yellow are confirmed binders flagged by Re-Glyco/Rotamer
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 17/04/2026
2/7 To illustrate this point we chose to filter the results of a recent open competition launched by Adaptyv Bio for the design of binders to the heavily glycosylated Nipah virus glycoprotein (NiV-G). (proteinbase.com/competitions...) which is quite ‘furry’ when expressed in HEK293 cells
a. Structure of the Nipah Virus Glycoprotein (NiV-G) homotetramer (aa 92-602) reconstructed from cryo-EM structures (PDB 7TXZ and 7TY0) bound to broadly neutralising antibody nAH1.3 Fabs30 (not shown). Static (single) glycans 3D structures (shown with sticks in blue) were reconstructed with GlycoShape ReGlyco17, where the choice of the glycan type was guided by glycoproteomics analysis36. The visible six glycan sites on chains A, B and D are mapped onto the structure, while glycans on chain C are not labelled for clarity. b. Structure of the glycosylated NiV-G recostructured with GlycoShape ReGlyco Ensemble29 using 150 frames from the MD trajectories of each selected glycan. Rendering effect is obtained with a “long exposure” filter to reflect the glycan dynamics. Sterically constrained glycans and rigid regions of the saccharides can be identified by the darker blue colour. c. Structure of the glycosylated NiV-G as in panel b. but with each one of the 150 glycan frames shown in dark blue, to illustrate the potentially occluded volume of the NiV-G protein surface.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 30/03/2026
Super congratulations to the Siglec (and many other stories) extraordinaire Dr. D'Andrea!!! 👩‍🎓🎉🥂🍾 A huge thank you to the fantastic examiners Alba Silipo (external) and Trinidad Velasco-Torrijos (internal) for your expert and in-depth examination, which made Silvia's viva a great day to remember 😎
From left: Prof Alba Silipo (UniNa, Federico II), Elisa Fadda, Dr Silvia D'Andrea, and Dr Trinidad Velasco-Torrijos, yellow table and amazing red velvet cake
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 19/03/2026
Super congratulation to Dr Akash Satheesan from the glycoShape team, who graduated officially today with a PhD @maynoothuniversity.ie !! 😎🎓👏🥳🥂 The 🔺-red gown definitely suits you well Akash! 😍
PhD graduation photo of Dr Akash Satheesan. From the left Beatrice Tropea, Akash (showing his well deserved parchment), Ojas Singh and Silvia D'Andrea
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
This work is also yet another example of how the chemistry and 3D context helps understanding recognition and binding. What can apparently look similar in 2D can be dramatically different in a 3D context where motions and dynamics are at play! Hope you'll enjoy reading the paper
Image representing Siglec-6 (surface cyan) digging through a membrane as if it was a field looking for GM1 (in yellow) the W127 is highlighted in pink as a plow
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Finally, we demonstrated that Siglec-6 is a molecular precision tool, recognising not only the epitope with surgical precision, but also the environment where the epitope is found (see ⬇️). This helps rationalise the apparent redundancy of Siglecs as specific receptors to diff sialylated glycans
a Binding of naked liposomes (liposomes that lack a ligand) to WT, W127A and Siglec-6 CHO cells using the cell assay (n = 4). Error bars correspond to standard deviation values. Figure generated using Adobe Illustrator. b IMS-CaR-nMS measurements for Siglec-6 (Fc) WT and mutants (each at 0.8 μM) with DMPC ND (5 μM) in 200 mM aqueous ammonium acetate solutions (pH 7.4); CID mass spectra (extracted form IMS heat maps) showing lipid ions released from (top) Siglec-6 WT, (middle) Siglec-6 R122A and (bottom) Siglec-6 W127A.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Duong, Ling, Lara and John used native MS to measure the binding affinity of Siglec-6 to oligosaccharides, GM1os, GM2os and GM3os, and showed that in the absence of the bilayer, all three gangliosides are bound with the same affinity and in a Arg122 dependent manner🔥 😎
a Binding affinities (Kd, mM) of the ganglioside oligosaccharides GM1os, GM2os and GM3os for Siglec-6 (Fc) WT (light blue bars; n(GM1os) = 5, n(GM2os) = 3, n(GM3os) = 7) and W127A mutant (orange bars; n(GM1os) = 5, n(GM2os) = 3, n(GM3os) = 5) measured in aqueous ammonium acetate (200 mM, pH 6.8, 25 °C) by COIN-CaR-nMS. Bar plots generated with seaborn (https://seaborn.pydata.org/). Error bars correspond to standard deviationGL1 values in all panels. b Binding affinities (Kd, mM) of the ganglioside oligosaccharides GM1os, GM2os and GM3os for Siglec-6 (Fc) R122A mutant (green bars; n(GM1os) = 4, n(GM2os) = 4, n(GM3os) = 4) measured in aqueous ammonium acetate (200 mM, pH 6.8, 25 °C) by COIN-nMS. c–g IMS-CaR-nMS measurements performed in negative ion mode for 0.8 μM Siglec 6 (Fc) WT with 5 μM 10% GM1/DMPC ND in 200 mM aqueous ammonium acetate solution (pH 7.4). c IMS heat map (m/z versus IMS drift time tD) and d corresponding full mass spectrum extracted from IMS heat map using Driftscope. e IMS heat map and f corresponding extracted CID mass spectrum showing (glyco)lipid ions released from Siglec-6; ions with m/z 7000 ± 100 were isolated by quadrupole (isolation window highlighted in yellow in e followed by IMS and CID; a collision energy of 100 V was applied in the Transfer region. g IMS-CaR-nMS measurements for Siglec-6 (Fc) mutants (each at 0.8 μM) and 10% GM1/DMPC ND (5 μM) in 200 mM aqueous ammonium acetate solutions (pH 7.4); CID mass spectra (extracted form IMS heat maps) showing (glyco)lipid ions released from (top) Siglec-6 R122A and (bottom) Siglec-6 W127A. h 3D structure of the V-set domain of CD33 in complex with a sialoside analogue (PDB 7AW6). The protein is rendered in cyan as a surface, while the sialoside is rendered with sticks with C atoms in cyan, O in red and N in blue. SNFG symbols of the sialoside (left) and of the GM1 (right) are shown to indicate the position of the glucose at the reducing end.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Eddie and Matt tested Siglec-6 binding on ganglioside-enriched liposomes and showed that the loss of K126 and W127 determine a complete loss of GM1 binding 🔥, and confirmed that the loss of the canonical Arg122 only decreases binding affinity, in perfect agreement with the 3D model 😎
a Expression levels of the Siglec-6 WT and mutants obtained by flow cytometry (n = 4). Error bars correspond to standard deviation values in all panels. b Depiction and results of the cell assay used to assess the ability of Siglec-6 mutants to bind glycolipid liposomes using flow cytometry (n = 4). c Depiction and results of the ELISA approach used to assess the function of the W127A Siglec-6 Mutant (n = 4). Figures in panels a to c were generated using Adobe Illustrator and include only original elements. d 3D structures of the Ig V-set domains of MAG (blue cartoons; PDB 2ZG3), Siglec-6 (cyan cartoons; this work) and Siglec-11 (purple cartoons; AF-Q96RL6-F1). The residues in the membrane-facing loops that could potentially interact with the bilayer are labelled and highlighted with sticks. Molecular rendering done with Visual Molecular Dynamics55 (VMD; https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/). e Sequence alignment of all human Siglecs performed with Clustal Omega58 (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/jdispatcher/msa/clustalo) shows that only Siglec-6 has a KW (or similar) combination of residues on the same loop, yet a number of other Siglecs, namely 5, 8, 10, 11, 14 and 16, have a combination of one aromatic and one positively charged residues across the two loops facing the cell membrane when binding gangliosides.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Silvia's simulations showed that while all epitopes expose Sia for binding, Siglec-6 recognises and binds only GM1 because of a key interaction with the membrane through W127 and K126, which orientates the V-set domain to bind the Sia through Arg122 and the terminal Gal to the C-C' loop 😎
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Silvia designed and ran a 2 years worth of MD simulations to determine how recognition of a very small epitope like GM1 sticking out of the membrane could be recognised and bound specifically by Siglec-6, i.e only GM1, and not GM2 or GM3 which are all very similar...
a 3D structure of Siglec-6 in complex with GM1 embedded in a lipid bilayer with composition distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC) 60% and cholesterol 40%. In this representative snapshot from the MD trajectory, collected at 0.715 μs from the equilibrated MD ensemble, Arg 122 is engaged in a salt bridge with the Neu5Ac of GM1. The protein is represented with cyan cartoon rendering, the GM1 with sticks and C atoms in purple, O in red and N in blue. DSPC and cholesterol are rendered with semi-transparent sticks, with C atoms in grey, O in red, N in blue and P in yellow. Key residues are labelled with numbering corresponding to the human Siglec-6 (UniProtID O43699). b Structures of GM1, GM2 and GM3 represented with the SNFG nomenclature. Labels below each structure include the oligosaccharides GlyTouCan IDs. c Kernel Density Estimates (KDE) analysis of the tilt angle values measured though the 1.0 μs MD trajectories ran for isolated GM1 (purple) and GM3 (orange). KDE maxima are 31.32° and 41.83° measured for GM1 and GM3, respectively. d 3D structure of an isolated GM1 molecule (sticks with C atoms in purple, O in red and N in blue) embedded in one of the bilayer leaflets (sticks with all atoms in grey) used to represent the axes used to measure the tilt angle (θ) indicating the orientation relative to the bilayer of the Neu5Ac and thus its accessibility. e Close-up view on the Siglec-6 binding site obtained through a counterclockwise rotation of approximately 120° relative to the structure in a. Key residues are labelled, while the embedding of the Trp127 sidechain in the bilayer is highlighted by a surface rendering of the lipids. The terminal Gal of GM1 is highlighted with C atoms in yellow for his role in orienting the C-C’ loop in the bound complex, also shown in yellow. f Time evolution along the MD trajectory of the distance (Å) between the Arg122 and the Neu5Ac carboxylate group. Data points correspond to the largest distance value calculated between four pairs of…
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/03/2026
Siglec-6 is one of 14 human Siglecs, all known to bind Sia with through a conserved (canonical) Arg. In earlier work Eddie, Matt et al (doi.org/10.1038/s414...) determined that in Siglec-6 the canonical Arg is dispensable, loss of R122 decreases but does not eliminate binding. How does this work?
Figure 1. Schematic representation of human Siglecs. Evolutionarily conserved Siglecs (Group 1) are shown on the left-hand side panel (pink box). The CD33-related Siglecs (Group 2) are shown on the right-hand side panel, (light blue box). The Siglecs extracellular domains are represented by a composition of Ig domains (C2-set) rendered as a solvent accessible surface, highlighted within green circles. The terminal Ig V-set binding domain is highlighted within an orange circle with a bound sialic acid in magenta (PDB 1OD9). Cytoplasmic domains are indicated with boxes and labelled according to the legend. Siglec-6 is highlighted within a yellow box as it is the focus of this work. All structural elements in this image were rendered with pymol (www.pymol.org) and incorporated in an original design based on Fig. 1 in ref. 2. In the insert on the top right-hand side, the conserved Arg is shown in the 3D structure of the Ig domain V-set of Siglec-6 (orange cartoons) bound to the NeuNAc-a(2-3)-Gal fragment (sticks with purple C atoms, red O atoms and blue N atoms) as an example.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 03/01/2026
This ⬇️ is screenshot of the Advanced Settings I used to produce the ensemble shown in the picture above,
Screenshot of the Advanced Settings menu in Re-Glyco Ensemble, where you can select 50 up to 500 structures (frames) from MD to represent the dynamics of the glycan on the glycoprotein you are rebuilding. You can calculate the Solvent Accessible Surface (SASA) the format of the output, i.e. standard PDB or GLYCAM for simulations with the Amber ff and from today the seed to guarantee reproducibility of the output. The seed is optional, if you like to keep the selection of conformers across the population clusters random, you can leave that space blank
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 03/01/2026
Happy new year 2026 #glycotime! 🥳 We just introduced some useful options to Re-Glyco Ensemble. In the Advanced Settings you can now select a seed (positive integer) to reproduce structural ensemble of your favourite glycoforms such as the one below that you will see soon in an upcoming paper,
Structure of a protein (cyan/teal) rendered as surface with 50 frames representing the dynamic ensemble of the glycans (white surface and sticks) depicted at the three sites (N93, N99 and N104) indicated by the 2D SNFG symbols and corresponding GlyTouCan IDs. Graphic rendering with VMD
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
GlycoShape couldn't have happened without all the hard work, super skillzzz and dedication of our team, current (below) and previous members! 🤩🤩 EF is not the only cat, you can scroll over the photos to discover all others 😍 And key funding from @researchireland.ie (former SFI) FFP🙏 ⬇️🧵
Screenshot of our current members of the eLab > Team tab, scroll down for all members who contributed to the work and now moved to their  new careers
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
We have used this approach to rebuild hyperglycosylated human EPO (or NESP shown below in the gif) in seconds 🏎️💨 as part of MSci and postgraduate summer schools structure glycoengineering for biologics workshop ⬇️🧵
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
We have also a new and improved Re-Glyco Ensemble, where you can see through a multiframe (50 to 500 frames from MD) glycan structure view, statistics and corresponding SASA analysis how the protein structure shifts the conformational equilibrium of the glycans ⬇️🧵
screenshot of the selection of frames to include in the Re-Glyco Ensemble analysis. Here I selected 100 conformations for each site, but you can go as low as 50 (default) or 500. To do this open advanced settings
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
We are not only continuing to grow our library, but also continuously perfecting and expanding our tools. Re-Glyco is leading the way 🤩, with improved computational efficiency 🏎️💨 and informative queuing widget and calculation process log ⬇️🧵
screenshot of the result of the re-glycosylation of NESP with Re-Glyco, you can see the queuing information above the structure, below the Mol* structure GUI (green protein in cartoons with glycans represented by SNFG symbols) you find buttons to can download the re-glycosylated structure (left) and switch to Ensemble mode (purple) where you can add glycan dynamic info to the static view
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
To do that we built the largest OA 3D library of glycan structures worldwide 🤯, counting 882 unique glycans complemented by at least 3 conformers each to account for their dynamics, obtained from the analysis of multimicrosecond MD simulations doi.org/10.1038/s415... ⬇️🧵
Screenshot of the "Database" front page indicating on the left the total number of glycans. You can search this database by filtering through your target mass range or by drawing the glycan with the Glycan Drawer you can find under "Draw" on the left of the search box, or by searching by glytoucan ID
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
Since Dec 2023 Glycoshape has progressively built a community of glycoengineers that continues to grow. These scientists recognise that to understand glycoproteins structure and function we need to take into consideration the glycans they have, with their micro and macro heterogeneity 🧵⬇️
World map with each blue dot represents a location of a glycoshape user. Data collected from launch to Nov 2025. land in white and water in light blue. The pie chart on the left indicates the countries where most users are based, first US, followed by China and UK third
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 15/12/2025
Happy birthday to us! 🥂🎂🥳 We are only 2 yo, but so much #glycotime happened since Dec 2023! ⬇️🧵 We truly appreciate your support, you fabulous glycoengineers around the world and we have so many exciting new tools for you coming up in 2026 to make your 3D glycoforms even better and faster! 🤩
Christmas wreath obtained by photoshop (gimp.org) of a protein structure with glycans in white rebuilt with Re-Glyco, protein in orange surface, red beads and green cartoons from PDB 8DLO
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 11/12/2025
This insight does not substitute MD simulations at all, but can complement it for high throughput as it took us seconds to build the structures you see with Re-Glyco Ensemble, about 30 mins to investigate and run rotameric search, and a whole lot of time to play around with pretty pictures 🤓 ⬇️🧵
Structure of the integrin 3V4V PDB in grey surface rendering with the yellow indicating the close contact (5 ang) with fucose (only) also shown in transparency over a cumulative 50 frames of MD, the rotamer Asn138(105) corresponds to rotamer 2, accessible with that loop conformation and no clashes. The glycan structure selected here has both arms open for clarity in regard to the fucose position
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 11/12/2025
Fucosylation does not change that, but it makes the fold less compact as it sits between the a6 arm and the core. The presence of fucose in this case allows the glycan to access all its preferred conformational degrees of freedom around the pocket indicated by a circle ⬇️🧵
SASA analysis in GlycoShape Ensemble blue is accessible, red is not accessible. the results here are based on 50 frames of MD, but you can select up to 500 in Advanced Settings
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 11/12/2025
We see (with just 50 frames from multimicrosecond MD data available in the database) that the conformation of the non-fucosylated glycan (G44826KU) is restricted by the protein structure. Indeed, the a6 arm (esp with gal and sia) prefers to fold over the core ⬇️🧵 doi.org/10.1093/glyc...
Cover of Glycobiology (Jan 2019 issue) blue background with the silhouette of two ballerinas with both arms up (left) and one with the left arm folded over (right) and biantennary core fucosylated N-glycans overlayed.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 11/12/2025
Glycans structure and flexibility is an inherent property of their structure and branching. The conformational equilibrium is only shifted when the protein architecture requires a selection of conformers that complement it best. This appears to be one of those cases
Left: structure of the integrin (3V4V) chain A in grey surface with highlighted in yellow the section of the protein within 5 Ang from the glycan (in this case the fucose). the glycan is shown with sticks with C atoms in cyan. GlyTouCan IDs and other information is shown with labels. Right: structure of the integrin (3V4V) chain A in grey surface with highlighted in purple the section of the protein within 5 Ang from the glycan. The label rot-1/3 indicates the rotameric search for Asn105 sidechain with 1 being the PDB and 3 being an alternative one leading to a similar orientation of the core.
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 05/12/2025
We just did some maintenance and updates to glycoshape.org, ✅ Fancy background with floating SNFG symbols 🤩 ✅ 'Latest Updates' feed from this account on bsky 🤩 ✅ Download PDB with SASA values in Re-Glyco Ensemble 🤩 Check it out!
Front page of Glycoshape website with the new background with floating SNFG symbols representing different monosaccharides. In the website the background is animated, so check it out at https://glycoshape.orgWhen you rebuild a glycosprotein with Re-Glyco Ensemble, now you can download the multiframe PDB with SASA values in the B-values column. The structure on the left shows in blue all the accessible surface and in light blue and red inaccessible residues due to the glycan presence. The buttons below are in cyan for regular multiframe PDB download (left) and download of all the file jobs (right) the middle gradient colored button allows users to download the PDB with SASA values
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 04/12/2025
This unique modification is introduced by the tryptophan C-mannosyltransferase (CMT). The beautiful structure of the C elegans CMT and the reaction are described in the brilliant work of Joël Bloch and coworkers[1].
close up view of the binding site of C elegans CMT, protein rendered as surface in grey, substrate in pink with sidechains highlighted with sticks and the donor deep into the binding site can be spotted in magenta C atoms (sicks also) PDB 7ZLJ
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 04/12/2025
For some unique #glycotime: C-man is a rare (but evolutionarily very old[1]) post translational modification of proteins, where the C2 of Trp in W-x-x-W/C sequons are linked to a single man through a C-C bond 🤯 This and its position within the structure stabilises the (unusual for man) 1C4 chair[2]
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GlycoShape @glycoshape.org · 02/12/2025
3/3 GlycoShape is an open access library of glycan structures from MD simulations that gives users all the diff structures significantly occupied at equilibrium and tools to reconstruct the target glycoproteins with a single representative conformer (Re-Glyco) or multiple (Re-Glyco Ensemble)
TC-TPA residues 311-562 in white, 50 conformers selected from the highest populated clusters from the analysis of the MD trajectory and not at random (new Re-Glyco Ensemble now on glycoshape.org) are shown in dark blue with wires, and the envelope in cyan is represented by QuickSurf to represent the approximate excluded volume (VMD used for rendering). You can select up to 500 frames in Advanced Settings
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