Abstract

At the present time, 160 human glycogenes encoding glycosyltransferases and sulfotransferases, which add sulfate to carbohydrates, have been cloned and analyzed for their substrate specificity. Mice have almost all genes orthologous to them, and some are specifically expressed in neuronal tissues. In this review, neurological disorders of mice deficient for the glycogenes that synthesize interesting carbohydrate epitopes in neuronal tissues are described and summarized.

Keywords: Glycogene, glycosyltransferase, sulfotransferase, ganglioside, HNK-1, Lewis X, polysialic acid, knockout mouse