Serendipity, or how working with glycoproteins from Trypanosomatids changed my life (with a little help from my friends)

RESUMO

In this article I am transmitting my own personal experience on how a metabolic step, the transient glucosylation of glycoproteins in the endoplasmic reticulum, was first detected in trypanosomatids because these cells have a simplified pathway of glycoprotein synthesis and processing. Knowledge of the occurrence of this step in trypanosomatids allowed its detection in mammalian, plant as well as fungal cells. Transient glucosylation of glycoproteins has been recently shown to be intimately related to the process by which glycoproteins adopt their final tertiary structure in the endoplasmic reticulum.