Laboratory of Marine Glycobiology
Head of the LabMaxim S. KOKOULIN, Ph.D.
Tel. +7 (423) 231-07-19
Lab staff
Alina P. Filshtein (Researcher, Ph.D.), Yulia V. Savicheva (Junior Researcher), Nikita K. Rubtsov (Junior Researcher), Ilya V. Taran (Junior Researcher), Roman A. Shkrabov (Junior Researcher), Vlada S. Belova (Engineer), Anastasia E. Bandeeva (Engineer), Polina V. Shitova (Engineer), Ksenia V. Isaeva (Engineer).
Research fields
The goal of the laboratory research is a large-scale search and study of the structures, functions and biological properties of carbohydrate-containing biopolymers from marine micro- and macroorganisms.
The main goals:
In the laboratory of marine glycobiology, work is underway to search for and isolate new carbohydrate-containing biopolymers from marine micro- and macroorganisms, study their structures, immunomodulatory and antiproliferative properties.
As a result of many years of research, employees of the laboratory (formerly the Laboratory of Carbohydrate Chemistry) established the structures of capsular polysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides from more than 50 strains of marine gram-negative bacteria belonging to the genera Alteromonas, Arenibacter, Cellulophaga, Cobetia, Devosia, Echinicola, Halomonas, Idiomarina, Kangiella, Litorimonas. Marinomonas, Marinicella, Microbulbifer, Oceanisphaera, Poseidonocella, Pseudoalteromonas, Pseudomonas, Psychrobacter, Rheinheimera, Shewanella, Simiduia, Sulfitobacter, Vibrio, etc. Many rare monosaccharide residues, including those previously not found in nature, were found in their composition.
Priority information was obtained that marine microorganisms (Idiomarina abyssalis, Halomonas halocynthia, Kangiella japonica, Cobetia sp., Poseidonocella sp., etc.) are capable of producing sulfated capsular polysaccharides, most of which exhibit pronounced antiproliferative properties against various lines of tumors human cells. The mechanism of antiproliferative action has been studied for individual polysaccharides.
The structures of lipopolysaccharides (Idiomarina zobellii, Cobetia sp., Cellulophaga sp., Echinicola sp., etc.) were studied and their ability to compete with lipopolysaccharides from pathogenic microorganisms for immune receptor binding sites was studied. Unique in their structure, lipopolysaccharides from marine sources are weak inducers of the synthesis of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and also exhibit an antagonistic effect on known agonists such as lipopolysaccharides from Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium.