UDP-N-acetylglucosamine

UDP-N-acetylglucosamine or UDP-GlcNAc is a nucleotide sugar and a coenzyme in metabolism. It is used by glycosyltransferases to transfer N-acetylglucosamine residues to substrates. D-Glucosamine is made naturally in the form of glucosamine-6-phosphate, and is the biochemical precursor of all nitrogen-containing sugars.^[1] Specifically, glucosamine-6-phosphate is synthesized from fructose-6-phosphate and glutamine^[2] as the first step of the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway.^[3] The end-product of this pathway is UDP-N-acetylglucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc), which is then used for making glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans, and glycolipids.^[4]

[edit] References

^ Roseman S. "Reflections on glycobiology," J Biol Chem, 2001 November 9; 276(45):41527-42. PMID 11553646. Full Text Online
^ Ghosh S, Blumenthal HJ, Davidson E, Roseman S. "Glucosamine metabolism. V. Enzymatic synthesis of glucosamine 6-phosphate", J Biol Chem, 1960 May; . PMID 13827775. PDF online.
^ International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
^ Milewski S, Gabriel I, Olchowy J (2006). "Enzymes of UDP-GlcNAc biosynthesis in yeast". Yeast 23 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1002/yea.1337. PMID 16408321.

v • d • e Types of nucleotide sugars

GDP-mannose \| UDP-glucose \| UDP-galactose \| UDP-glucuronic acid \| UDP-N-acetylglucosamine

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