Imaging Glycans in Zebrafish Embryos by Metabolic Labeling and Bioorthogonal Click Chemistry

Recent demonstration of in vivo imaging of glycans uses a bio orthogonal chemical reporter strategy of treating cells or organisms with alkin or azide tagged monosaccharides. Modified monosaccharides processed by the glycan biosynthetic machinery are incorporated into cell surface glyco conjugates, bio orthogonal alkin, or azide tags. Then allow covalent conjugation with fluorescent probes for visualization or with affinity probes for enrichment and glyco proteomic analysis.

This click chemistry based method allows for the rapid, non-invasive and robust labeling of alkin or azi detect glycans in zebrafish embryos and can be readily extended to visualize other classes of glycans in developing organisms. The main advantage of this technique over existing methods like lectin or antibody-based glycan detection methods is that it can be applied to dynamic in vivo imaging. Lectin and antibody-based imaging methods only provide a snapshot of the glycans at a particular time point.