Project 456351

All of the cells in our body are coated with different types of sugar molecules. Cells in our immune system have ways of "tasting" these sugars. Some types of sugars taste good to our immune system, signaling that our cells are healthy and that everything is normal. Other sugars (like those attached to invading bacteria, viruses or cancer cells) taste bad to our immune cells, triggering them to activate and try to protect us from disease. Sometimes our cells can become altered in ways that lead them to produce different or abnormal types of sugar molecules on their surface. When this happens, it can lead our immune cells to either overlook unhealthy cells (in the case of cancer) or inappropriately attack healthy cells (in the case of autoimmune diseases). Understanding the details of how this happens can help us develop new drugs to treat such diseases. We face the problem, however, that these cellular sugar molecules are not like the sugar that we eat. Cellular sugars are notoriously chemically complex, making it difficult to predict exactly how specific types of sugar molecules will affect our immune system. This proposal attempts to solve this problem using a recently developed set of techniques for studying cellular genetics. These techniques allow us to get a more precise understanding of how our immune cells produce and interact with specific sugars. This information allows us to better understand and predict how certain carbohydrates will impact the activity of our immune system. Insights from this research can generate new drugs that help restore proper immune function and cure otherwise devastating diseases.