CONTRIBUTION OF CARBOHYDRATE HISTOCHEMISTRY TO GLYCOBIOLOGY

The physiological importance of carbohydrate biology has gradually eme rged from a lot of recent information on protein-carbohydrate and carb ohydrate-carbohydrate interaction in normal and pathological condition s. After considering the conventional methods which allowed researcher s to differentiate glycan-containing macromolecules from other complex compounds (nucleic acids, proteins), selected topics of intracellular and cellular organ architecture are focused upon in which the use of lectins and neoglycoproteins as histochemical reagents has opened new horizons for the localization of glycoconjugates in situ and the eluci dation of their often still enigmatic functions. The authors hope to p lace into perspective that such glycohistochemical studies will strong ly contribute to the progress in the dynamically growing field of glyc obiology.