Glycohydrases and Related Reagents [Glycoscience]

Glycosidases (Glycoside hydrolases) are largely classified into two types: exo-type and endo-type.
Endoglycosidases recognize the internal structure of oligosaccharides and can cleave consensus motifs of various oligosaccharides with a specific enzyme, to obtain appropriate oligosaccharide structures.
On the other hand, exoglycosidases degrade glycan chains from the terminal end, requiring individually different enzymes for each constituent saccharide, resulting in the gradual elimination of monosaccharide (or disaccharide) units.

Tokyo Chemical Industry lineups endoglycosidases such as endo-β-N-acetylglucosaminidase (Endo-M, Endo-M mutant), endo-α-N-acetylgalactosaminidase (Endo-α), endoglycoceramidases (EGCases), and keratanase (KSase II), as well as sialidase as an exoglycosidase.

In recent years, the importance of glycan researches has been increasing in fields such as biopharmaceuticals (antibody drugs), cancer (immunotherapy), regenerative medicine (stem cells), diagnostic agents (biomarkers), drug discovery (new modalities), and infectious diseases (viruses), expanding the applications for these enzyme products.