Sugar Pairings Curb Abnormal Cell-Growth Signals

Acting as an armor, a scaffold, and a communication platform in one, our cells' plasma membrane lies at the heart of many crucial cellular processes. Traditionally, it has been thought to function through interactions among its various proteins and lipids. Now, researchers have revealed a crucial yet often overlooked membrane component - complex sugar chains, known as glycans, carried by certain membrane lipids called gangliosides and many membrane proteins.

Published in Nature Communications, a team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Gifu University, the National Cancer Center Research Institute in Japan, Kyoto University and collaborators show that glycans on gangliosides in the same plasma membrane form weak, short-lived pairs. Repeated "fleeting encounters" of the glycans help couple the gangliosides, build membrane nanodomains and regulate epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling, which in turn modulates cell division.