More Like this

1. Sequence-Specific Mucins for Glycocalyx Engineering

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.9b00127  

   Pan, Hao; Colville, Marshall J.; Supekar, Nitin T.; Azadi, Parastoo; Paszek, Matthew J. (September 2019, ACS Synthetic Biology)
2. Advancing Discovery of Snail Mucins Function and Application

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2021.734023  

   McDermott, Maxwell; Cerullo, Antonio R.; Parziale, James; Achrak, Eleonora; Sultana, Sharmin; Ferd, Jennifer; Samad, Safiyah; Deng, William; Braunschweig, Adam B.; Holford, Mandë (October 2021, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology)

   Mucins are a highly glycosylated protein family that are secreted by animals for adhesion, hydration, lubrication, and other functions. Despite their ubiquity, animal mucins are largely uncharacterized. Snails produce mucin proteins in their mucous for a wide array of biological functions, including microbial protection, adhesion and lubrication. Recently, snail mucins have also become a lucrative source of innovation with wide ranging applications across chemistry, biology, biotechnology, and biomedicine. Specifically, snail mucuses have been applied as skin care products, wound healing agents, surgical glues, and to combat gastric ulcers. Recent advances in integrated omics (genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, glycomic) technologies have improved the characterization of gastropod mucins, increasing the generation of novel biomaterials. This perspective describes the current research on secreted snail mucus, highlighting the potential of this biopolymer, and also outlines a research strategy to fulfill the unmet need of examining the hierarchical structures that lead to the enormous biological and chemical diversity of snail mucus genes. 

   more » « less
3. Preparation and applications of artificial mucins in biomedicine

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cossms.2022.101031  

   Detwiler, Rachel E.; Kramer, Jessica R. (December 2022, Current Opinion in Solid State and Materials Science)
4. Principles of glycocalyx engineering with hydrophobic-anchored synthetic mucins

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2022.952931  

   Wardzala, Casia L.; Clauss, Zachary S.; Kramer, Jessica R. (October 2022, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology)

   The cellular glycocalyx is involved in diverse biological phenomena in health and disease. Yet, molecular level studies have been challenged by a lack of tools to precisely manipulate this heterogeneous structure. Engineering of the cell surface using insertion of hydrophobic-terminal materials has emerged as a simple and efficient method with great promise for glycocalyx studies. However, there is a dearth of information about how the structure of the material affects membrane insertion efficiency and resulting density, the residence time of the material, or what types of cells can be utilized. Here, we examine a panel of synthetic mucin structures terminated in highly efficient cholesterylamide membrane anchors for their ability to engineer the glycocalyx of five different cell lines. We examined surface density, residence time and half-life, cytotoxicity, and the ability be passed to daughter cells. We report that this method is robust for a variety of polymeric structures, long-lasting, and well-tolerated by a variety of cell lines. 

   more » « less
5. Mucins Inhibit Coronavirus Infection in a Glycan-Dependent Manner

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.1c01369  

   Wardzala, Casia L.; Wood, Amanda M.; Belnap, David M.; Kramer, Jessica R. (February 2022, ACS Central Science)