Glycome Atlas
Glycome pillar
The heavily glycosylated proteins and microbial interactions that maintain the intestinal mucus barrier.
Akkermansia muciniphila is a gut bacterium that lives in the mucus layer and feeds on mucin, the gel that lines the intestine. It is a normal, common member of a healthy gut community.
Read reviewed entryThe intestinal mucus barrier is a slippery gel that lines the gut. In the colon it is arranged in two layers: a dense inner layer that keeps bacteria away from the gut wall, and a looser outer layer where helpful microbes live.
Read reviewed entryMicrobial glycan foraging is how gut bacteria feed themselves on sugars, both from the fiber you eat and from the mucus lining of your gut. They carry specialized enzymes that chop these sugar chains into usable pieces.
Read reviewed entryMUC2 is the main mucin that builds the mucus lining of the intestines. Goblet cells in the gut wall make and release it, and once outside the cell it swells and links together into the gel that forms the intestinal mucus layer. It is by far the most abundant gel-forming mucin in the colon.
Read reviewed entryMucin O-glycans are the thick forest of sugar chains attached to mucin proteins. They are so dense that they coat the protein backbone and give mucus its water-holding, gel-like character.
Read reviewed entryMucins are large proteins carrying so many attached sugar chains that they are mostly sugar by weight. They are the main building blocks of mucus, the slippery gel that coats the gut, airways, and other wet surfaces of the body. Some mucins are secreted to form the gel itself, while others stay anchored in the cell membrane as part of a cell's outer sugar coat.
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