Phosphorylcholine-containing N-glycans of Trichinella spiralis: identification of multiantennary lacdiNAc structures

Although the presence of phosphorylcholine (PC) in Trichinella spiralis is well established, the precise structure of the PC-bearing molecules is not known. In this paper, we report structural studies of N-glycans released fr om T.spiralis affinity-purified antigens by peptide N-glycosidase F. Three classes of N-glycan structures were observed: high mannose type structures; those which had been fully trimmed to the trimannosyl core and were sub-st oichiometrically fucosylated; and those with a trimannosyl core, with and w ithout core fucosylation, carrying between one and eight N-acetylhexosamine residues. Of the three classes of glycans, only the last was found to be s ubstituted with detectable levels of phosphorylcholine.