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. 2020 Jul 31;21(15):5494. doi: 10.3390/ijms21155494

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© 2020 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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The structural diversity of the glycocalyx is fundament to many cellular processes and appears with the sialic acid subunit Neu5Ac in humans as terminal cap. Sialic acid is mainly found as terminal saccharide on the glycocalyx that is formed by glycolipids (e.g., gangliosides) as well as sialylated and polysialylated glycoproteins (e.g., polySia-NCAM). Glycoproteins can be shedded (here simplified by showing a scissor) and released as sialylated molecules (e.g., forming the mucus). Sialic acids (Sia), oligosialic acids (oligoSia) and polysialic acids (polySia) can be cleaved by sialidases (scissor) or oxidative processes (scissor) and trapped together with growth factors in the extracellular matrix. Neu5Ac, N-acetylneuraminic acid; Gal, galactose; Glc, glucose; Man, mannose; Fuc, fucose; GlcNAc, N-acetylglucosamine; GalNAc, N-acetylgalactosamine.