Artificial Cysteine S‐Glycosylation Induced by Per‐O‐Acetylated Unnatural Monosaccharides during Metabolic Glycan Labeling

Abstract

Abstract The unexpected, non‐enzymatic S‐glycosylation of cysteine residues in various proteins by per‐O‐acetylated monosaccharides is described. This artificial S‐glycosylation greatly compromises the specificity and validity of metabolic glycan labeling in living cells by per‐O‐acetylated azido and alkynyl sugars, which has been overlooked in the field for decades. It is demonstrated that the use of unacetylated unnatural sugars can avoid the artifact formation and a corrected list of O‐GlcNAcylated proteins and O‐GlcNAc sites in HeLa cells has been assembled by using N ‐azidoacetylgalactosamine (GalNAz).