AUTHOR=Salmeán Armando A. , Hervé Cécile , Jørgensen Bodil , Willats William G. T. , Mravec Jozef 

TITLE=Microarray Glycan Profiling Reveals Algal Fucoidan Epitopes in Diverse Marine Metazoans

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2017.00293

DOI=10.3389/fmars.2017.00293

ISSN=2296-7745

ABSTRACT=<p>Despite the biological importance and pharmacological potential of glycans from marine organisms, there are many unanswered questions regarding their distribution, function, and evolution. Here we describe microarray-based glycan profiling of a diverse selection of marine animals using antibodies raised against fucoidan isolated from a brown alga. We demonstrate the presence of two fucoidan epitopes in six animals belonging to three phyla including Porifera, Molusca, and Chordata. We studied the spatial distribution of these epitopes in <italic>Cliona celata</italic> (“boring sponge”) and identified their restricted localization on the surface of internal chambers. Our results show the potential of high-throughput screening and probes commonly used in plant and algal cell wall biology to study the diversity and distribution of glycan structures in metazoans.</p>