-
We are currently establishing expertise in preparative HDL separation, functional subclass fractionation, and HDL compositional and functional analysis. Our lab is set up to analyze and interpret results from multi-omic platforms with a focus on phenotypes related to lipoprotein and inflammatory profiles.
- We discovered that HDL from healthy individuals are highly sialylated. Both the glycolipids and glycoproteins were enriched in N- and O-glycans decorated with sialic acid and fucose residues. We demonstrated that the current depiction of HDL as “naked” particles is misleading and that in fact, HDL particles are covered with many types of glycan structures that likely confer an array of functional as well as structural and physicochemical properties to HDL that remain to be elucidated. We have shown that glycans and glycopeptides in isolated HDL fractions can differentiate disease phenotypes and affect HDL’s immunomodulatory function. Ongoing and future research will build on these discoveries to characterize the roles of glycans in HDL’s functional biology.