Glycans modify mesenchymal stem cell differentiation to impact the function of resulting osteoblasts

Glycans are inherently heterogeneous, yet glycosylation is essential in eukaryotes and glycans show characteristic cell type dependent distributions. Using an immortalized human mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) line model we show that both N- and O-glycan processing in the Golgi functionally modulate early steps of osteogenic differentiation. Inhibiting O-glycan processing in the Golgi prior to the start of osteogenesis inhibited the...