Figure 1.

A. Glycosylation provides a steric shield towards proteolysis. B. Introduction of a carbohydrate moiety into the peptide backbone gives the peptide “biousian character.” A glycopeptide lacking a carbohydrate will strongly interact with the lipid bilayer and adopt an amphipathic α-helical conformation. The introduction of a carbohydrate will increase the water solubility of the peptide message and allow it to “hop” into the aqueous phase where it can adopt an ensemble of random coil conformations. This “hopping” behavior allows glycopeptides to assess a greater amount of surface area compared to their un-glycosylated counterparts.