In this section, you can access to the latest technical information related to the FUTURE project topic.

Characterization of glycogen molecular structure in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans

Glycogen, a glucose homopolymer with many glucose chains, is the primary blood-sugar reservoir in many organisms. It comprises ? particles (?20?nm) which can bind together to form large ? particles with a rosette morphology. When dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is added to glycogen from diabetic livers, ? particles break apart to ? particles (?fragility?), possibly due to H-bond disruption; this is not seen in healthy livers. Glycogen ? and ? particles, and ?-particle fragility, are observed in mammals and bacteria, and are examined here in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, with glycogen from two C. elegans strains, cultured in normal and high-glucose conditions. There were mainly ? particles, with some large ? particles. Most particles were fragile in DMSO. Growing in a high-glucose medium results in more long chains and more fragility, consistent with previous observations in diabetic animal models. Why high glucose levels facilitate fragility is worthy of further investigation.

» Author: Qinghua Liu, Zuobin Zhu, Mengmeng Wang, Yuechen Wang, Peng Zhang, Hao Wang, Mengyu Liang, Ying Li, Bin Deng, Daoquan Tang, Robert G. Gilbert, Liang Wang

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