Glycan Function Workshop 2023

Workshop on Functional Impact of Glycans and their Curation

April 23, 2023, 9:00am - 5:00pm

Hotel NH Padova, Padua, Italy

GlyGen and the Society for Glycobiology are sponsoring a special workshop held in conjunction with the the 2023 International Biocuration Conference (April 24-26th) in Padua, Italy. The purpose of this workshop is to build a community to better annotate glycan function by bringing together subject matter experts, tool developers and biocurators from resources that annotate content related to the functional impact of glycans.

Abstract

Dynamic changes in protein glycosylation impact human health and disease progression. However, current resources that capture disease and phenotype information such as MIM, Monarch Initiative, UniProt, and Genomics England, and others focus primarily on the macromolecules within the central dogma of molecular biology (DNA, RNA, proteins). In order to gain a more complete understanding of human disease, there is a need to capture the functional impact of glycans and glycosylation on biological processes. While the aforementioned resources include glycan-related genes, such as biosynthetic and degradative enzymes, the function and disease annotations are usually associated with the gene product rather than with the relevant glycosylation and glycan structural changes. Expression of glycan-related genes represents only a subset of factors affecting protein glycosylation. The functional impact of a specific glycan structure may depend on the protein to which it is bound, site of attachment, truncation or loss of the entire glycan structure. A catalog of glycosylation combinations, their relationship with other biomolecules, and their functional implications will provide insight into the biological roles of glycans and the impact of genetic and environmental factors on their expression. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together subject matter experts, tool developers and biocurators from resources that annotate content that is related to the functional impact of glycans. Each resource will do a short presentation on their data of interest, including  types of annotations, what impact glycan function might have on these annotations, and standards and ontologies they are using. This will be followed by a jamboree/hackathon where we will discuss selected publications to identify commonalities and gaps in our current curation practices, and provide potential solutions. The attendees will help identify areas where curators, data wranglers, and text mining experts can collaborate to address gaps in glycan and glycosylation annotations, leverage each other’s work to improve their respective resources and encourage data sharing amongst resources.

Organization Committee

Raja Mazumder (GlySpace, GlyGen), Mike Tiemeyer (GlySpace, GlyGen), Rene Ranzinger (GlyGen), Maria Martin (UniProt, GlyGen), Kiyoko Aoki-Kinoshita (GlySpace, GlyCosmos, GlyTouCan), Frederique Lisacek (GlySpace, GlyConnect), Cecilia Arighi (PIR, BioCreative, UniProt), Randi Vita (IEDB), Jeet Vora (GlyGen), Karina Martinez (GlyGen)

Registration

Registration can be completed on Eventbrite here. Tickets are limited, please register as soon as possible to reserve your spot.

Venue

Hotel NH Padova, Via Niccolò Tommaseo, 61, 35131 Padova, Italy

https://www.nh-hotels.com/hotel/nh-padova

16 minute walking time to Centro Culturale San Gaetano (Conference venue)

Cost

Free, with lunch and coffee provided. Travel and accommodation are not included.

Accommodations

You can book a room at Hotel NH Padova from Saturday, April 22nd onwards. Additional lodging suggestions can be found on the 2023 Biocuration Conference website here.

Tenative Schedule

Morning session (9am - 12:30pm)

Introductions

Presentations

Discussion

Lunch (12:30 - 1:30pm)

Afternoon session (1:30pm - 5pm)

Discussion

Coffee break (15 minutes)

Draft standard procedures to curate glycomics data

Prepare action plans/presentation

Presentations

Each resource will do a short presentation on their data of interest, including types of annotations, what impact glycan function might have on these annotations, and standards and ontologies they are using. The goal of these presentations is to improve coordination amongst resources to capture and harmonize glycan and glycosylation related data.

Questions that can be addressed in the presentations:

1. How would your resource extract glycan-related data from literature or other sources?
2. What type of glycan-related data would be useful to your resource–that you don’t currently have access to?
3. What type of data–that you do have–might enhance glycan-related data?
4. What standards does your resource use for the glycan-related annotations?

Registered Attendees (Resource/Project)

Raja Mazumder (GlyGen), Mike Tiemeyer (GlyGen), Rene Ranzinger (GlyGen), Karina Martinez (GlyGen), Maria Martin (UniProt), Cecilia Arighi (UniProt/BioCreative), Kiyoko Aoki-Kinoshita (GlyCosmos), Frederique Lisacek (glyco@Expasy), Randi Vita (Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Project), Susan Bello (Mouse Genome Informatics), Vijay Shanker (University of Delaware), Kalpana Panneerselvam (IntAct), Nathan Edwards (GlycoMotif/GlyGen Glycan Sandbox), Ten Feizi (Glycan microarray data curation), Callum Ives (GlycoShape-3D), Jon Agirre (University of York), Hiren Joshi (GlycoDomainViewer)

Contact

For questions about registration or general inquiries, please contact:
Raja Mazumder: mazumder@gwu.edu
Karina Martinez: karinamartinez@gwu.edu
Jeet Vora: jeetvora@gwu.edu