Carbohydrates and glycosylation.

The C. elegans genome contains sequences similar to a large number of mammalian genes implicated in the assembly, processing, and modification of glycans. In recent years, spectacular progress has been made in developing and refining tools to obtain structural information with small amounts of material, increasing our understanding of glycan structural complexity in this organism. These approaches have revealed novel N- and O-glycan structures in C. elegans, as well as a high degree of conservation in glycosaminoglycan structure. In parallel, studies in which glycan structure is perturbed by genetic manipulation have begun to reveal the roles of specific carbohydrate moieties in developmental and physiological processes. This review summarizes recent work elucidating the fine structure of complex carbohydrates in C. elegans as well as genetic studies that have uncovered novel roles for complex carbohydrates in developmental processes.