The GlycO Ontology in Protégé
3 Top-Level Classes
are Defined in GlycO
The GlycO Ontology in Protégé
Semantics Include Chemical Context
This Class Inherits from 2 Parents
The GlycO Ontology in Protégé
The -D-Manp residues
in N-glycans are found
in 8 different chemical
environments
GlycoTree – A Canonical Representation of N-Glycans
We give a residue in this position the
same name, regardless of the specific
structure it resides in
b-D-GlcpNAc-(1-6)+
b-D-GlcpNAc-(1-2)- -D-Manp -(1-6)+
Semantics!
b-D-Manp-(1-4)- b-D-GlcpNAc -(1-4)- b-D-GlcpNAc
b-D-GlcpNAc-(1-4)- -D-Manp -(1-3)+
b-D-GlcpNAc-(1-2)+
N. Takahashi and K. Kato, Trends in Glycosciences and
Glycotechnology, 15: 235-251
Glyco Population
• The next slides show the different steps
that were necessary to populate GlycO
with glycan structures from multiple
sources.
Ontology population workflow
Semagix Freedom knowledge
extractor
YES:
next Instance
Instance
Data
Already in
KB?
Has
CarbBank
ID?
NO
YES
Insert into
KB
Compare to
Knowledge
Base
NO
IUPAC to
LINUCS
LINUCS to
GLYDE
Semagix Freedom knowledge
extractor
YES:
next Instance
Instance
Data
Already in
KB?
Has
CarbBank
ID?
NO
YES
Insert into
KB
Compare to
Knowledge
Base
[][Asn]{[(4+1)][b-D-GlcpNAc]
{[(4+1)][b-D-GlcpNAc]
{[(4+1)][b-D-Manp]
{[(3+1)][a-D-Manp]
IUPAC to
NO{[(2+1)][b-D-GlcpNAc]
LINUCS
{}[(4+1)][b-D-GlcpNAc]
{}}[(6+1)][a-D-Manp]
{[(2+1)][b-D-GlcpNAc]{}}}}}}
LINUCS to
GLYDE
Semagix Freedom knowledge
extractor
<Glycan>
YES:
<aglycon name="Asn"/>
<residue link="4"
anomer="b" chirality="D" monosaccharide="GlcNAc">
nextanomeric_carbon="1"
Instance
<residue link="4" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="b" chirality="D" monosaccharide="GlcNAc">
<residue link="4" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="b"
Instancechirality="D" monosaccharide="Man" >
<residue link="3" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="a"
Data chirality="D" monosaccharide="Man" >
<residue link="2" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="b" chirality="D" monosaccharide="GlcNAc" >
</residue>
<residue link="4" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="b" chirality="D" monosaccharide="GlcNAc" >
</residue>
Has
</residue> Already in
IUPAC to
CarbBankchirality="D"
NO monosaccharide="Man" >
<residue link="6" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="a"
KB?
LINUCS
<residue link="2" anomeric_carbon="1" anomer="b"
chirality="D" monosaccharide="GlcNAc">
ID?
</residue>
</residue>
</residue>
NO
YES
</residue>
</residue>
</Glycan>
Compare to
Insert into
KB
Knowledge
Base
LINUCS to
GLYDE
EnzyO
• The enzyme ontology EnzyO is highly
intertwined with GlycO. While it’s structure
is mostly that of a taxonomy, it is highly
restricted at the class level and hence
allows for comfortable classification of
enzyme instances from multiple
organisms.
Putting it together
• GlycO together with EnzyO contain all the
information that is needed for the
description of Metabolic pathways
– e.g. N-Glycan Biosynthesis
N-Glycosylation metabolic pathway
N-glycan_beta_GlcNAc_9
GNT-I
attaches GlcNAc at position 2
N-acetyl-glucosaminyl_transferase_V
N-glycan_alpha_man_4
GNT-V
attaches
GlcNAc at position 6
UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine + alpha-D-Mannosyl-1,3-(R1)-beta-D-mannosyl-R2
<=>
UDP + N-Acetyl-$beta-D-glucosaminyl-1,2-alpha-D-mannosyl-1,3-(R1)-beta-D-mannosyl-$R2
UDP-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine + G00020 <=> UDP + G00021
Pathway representation in GlycO
Pathways do not need to be
explicitly defined in GlycO. The
residue-, glycan-, enzyme- and
reaction descriptions contain
all the knowledge necessary to
infer pathways.
Zooming in a little …
Reaction R05987
catalyzed by enzyme 2.4.1.145
adds_glycosyl_residue
N-glycan_b-D-GlcpNAc_13
The product of this
reaction is the
Glycan with KEGG
ID 00020.
The N-Glycan with KEGG
ID 00015 is the substrate to
the reaction R05987, which
is catalyzed by an enzyme
of the class EC 2.4.1.145.