Abstract :
Cell-surface glycoprotein receptors have varying numbers of N-glycan sites. In this issue of Cell, report that increasing intracellular UDP-GlcNAc leads to increased branching of N-glycans, increased receptor association with cell-surface galectin-3, and enhanced signaling. They also show that the kinetics of this response differ between growth-promoting receptors, which have 8–16 N-glycans, and those that induce growth arrest, which have very few N-glycans, suggesting that hexosamine flux may regulate the transition from growth to arrest.
