Minireview: Bacterial Sialyltransferases for Carbohydrate Synthesis

Abstract

Sialylation catalyzed by sialyltransferases is one of the most interesting enzymatic glycosyl transfer reactions, since chemical sialylations usually give only low yields and lead to poor stereoselectivities. In the last decade, several bacterial sialyltransferases were identified and found to exhibit broader substrate specificity than their mammalian counterparts. This suggests the potential usefulness of bacterial sialyltransferases in chemo-enzymatic synthesis of natural and non-natural sialooligosaccharides.