N-Glycan structures of glycoproteins in suspension-cultured Arabidopsis thaliana T87 cells

Suspension-cultured plant cells are feasible bioreactors for the production of pharmaceutical proteins. Post-translational modification, such as glycosylation, is important for in vivo biological and physiological roles of proteins. However, little is known about the effect of suspension-culture conditions on protein N-glycosylation. In this study, we studied the N-glycan structures of soluble and endogenous glycoproteins at different growth stages of suspension-cultured Arabidopsis thaliana T87 cells. At the late growth stage, the amount of N-glycans with terminal N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) decreased, whereas that of N-glycans with fucose and xylose increased. This indicates that N-glycans have more plant-specific sugar residues as the cultivation reaches the late or end stage of plant growth.