Just a spoonful of sugar...
Research currently being carried out by the Science Foundation Ireland funded Alimentary Glycoscience Research Cluster (AGRC) at NUIG could lead to the rapid diagnosis of diseases such as cancer and the creation of new more highly targeted and effective drugs.
Led by Professor Lokesh Joshi, AGRC is a collaborative cluster with investigators from NUI Galway, University College Cork, University College Dublin and NIBRT. AGRC is also strongly supported by indigenous and international industries.
Glycoscience is mainly concerned with the study of the glycans or sugars that coat every living cell and are involved in the interactions that occur between cells. Sugars are involved in many physiological processes ranging from fertilisation and stem cell differentiation to tumour metastasis, immune regulation, inflammation, and host-pathogen interactions.
AGRC researchers have brought Irish glycoscientists together under the academic umbrella organisation, Glycoscience Ireland, which is promoting Irish glycoscience activities nationally and internationally.
The main focus of the AGRC research is the human digestive system. The human gut carries about 10 trillion bacteria, several times the number of cells in the body. Most of these are friendly and help us remain healthy. The glycan coat of intestinal cells forms a chemical barrier and communication channel between the gut wall and the interior of the body.
Most microbes in the gut, both useful and harmful, interact with this glycan coat. The structures and presentation patterns of the glycans determine whether a beneficial or pathogenic bacterium can colonise the host.
The gut wall glycans have the ability to change and thereby prevent or encourage the interaction with these bacteria. AGRC is studying these changes and developing methods, technologies and possible new therapies to control microbial colonisation. The goal is to allow unwanted bacteria to be kept at bay and useful ones to be encouraged where necessary.
“Our main goal is to look at how bugs in the gut use sugars to find the right home”, Professor Joshi adds. “And the new technologies we are developing for this can be used in other areas of research as well.”
Among these other areas of research is drug development. Many drugs are made of proteins which are present in the human body in any case – they are simply manufactured outside of it to be administered in suitable doses to fight particular diseases of conditions. However, like other cells these proteins are covered in sugar but because they have been manufactured outside the human body it may not be the right sugar.
“If it is the wrong sugar it will activate the immune system and our bodies will reject it”, Joshi points out. “If we are trying to save the patient activating the immune system in this way is not what we want to do. This causes side effects and will reduce the efficacy of the drug. There are two things we can do to help. The first is to take the drug and say whether it has the right sugar or the wrong one. The second is to help them put the right sugar on it.”
And the AGRC research goes further still. It also has relevance to the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases including cancer. “We have recently been selected by the EU for grant funding for research into the next generation of glycobiomimic and glycosensor tools for the diagnosis of cancer glycobiomarkers”, says Joshi. “Cancer cells are just different types of cell, they are still covered in sugar and the same technologies can be used in relation to them.”
