June 26, 2000, was a memorable day in the history of science.
That Monday morning at the White House, President Bill Clinton introduced a group of scientists who had published the first draft of the human genome.
The researchers in the Human Genome Project had sequenced about 90 percent of the genome. That is, they determined the order of the base pairs of DNA — A,C, G and T — that make up the human genome.
Not long after that announcement, genetic sequencing became a routine part of the daily news, particularly in agriculture.
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In the 2000s and 2010s, scientists unveiled the genetic sequence of rice, corn, soybeans, barley and finally wheat, a plant with a massive genetic code that’s five times larger than the human genome.
Plant breeders and plant geneticists still don’t understand the function of most of the genes for crops such as wheat, corn or canola, which limits the practical benefits of sequencing the genome.
However, plant scientists are constantly discovering what certain genes do and don’t do. That knowledge is leading to new varieties that are more nutritious, more resistant to disease and that yield more than existing crop varieties.
Such genetic research could lead to massive innovations — maybe a corn plant that fixes its own nitrogen.
That would be a game changer, but a small group of Canadian scientists could be working on something that might also be revolutionary for farming and food production.
It’s called glycomics.
Glycomics?
“Glycomics is the study of carbohydrates structure in a biological system,” said Wade Abbott, an Agriculture Canada researcher in Lethbridge.
Abbott is part of GlycoNet, a group of 178 researchers across Canada who are studying potential applications in health, agriculture and sustainable energy.
A GlycoNet document called Glycomics: The New Frontier in Bioinnovation provides a clearer explanation of what it’s about.
“Glycomics is the science of glycans—also called carbohydrates or sugars,” the paper says. “Every cell within every organism — humans, animals, plants, bacteria, viruses — carries a sophisticated array of glycans (sugars). They guide and control almost every aspect of biology…. How we fight infection, how our bodies heal … and how our agricultural crops resist drought … are all precisely controlled by glycans.”
The document provides a few examples of glycans and their roles in human health:
- Blood type is determined by differences in a single sugar in a glycan.
- Cancer cells have “subtly changed glycans” on their cell surfaces, which help the cells evade the human immune system.
Glycomics is becoming a mainstream part of medical research as it’s used to understand the role of carbohydrates in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.
And Canada, which struggles with innovation, is a world leader in glycomics.
“For example, nearly 90 years ago, Canadian glycomics researchers successfully optimized the production of heparin (a type of glycan) to reduce blood clotting,” says the GlycoNet website. “(It) is an essential component in surgeries…. The global market for heparin is $8.4 billion.”
The University of Alberta hopes to take advantage of the opportunity in glycomics.
In 2022 it launched the Glycomics Institute of Alberta to build upon its position as a global leader in glycomics research.
The potential for using glycomics for challenges in health, agriculture and energy could be massive because animals, plants and the natural world are loaded with carbohydrates.
“(They) are the most abundant biomolecule on the planet and coat every cell in the human body,” says the Glycomics Institute of Alberta.
“Cells use these sugars to communicate at the molecular level to carry out a number of functions. They are essential to our health and well-being … yet they are still one of the least studied classes of biomolecules.”
Glycomics and agriculture
Abbott didn’t plan to become an expert in sugars, carbohydrates or glycomics.
In 2005 he earned a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Victoria and focused most of his attention on proteins — how they work together at a molecular level and what that means for bodily functions, such as digestion.
In 2011, he took a job with Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge.
He began by researching livestock health and what’s happening in the guts of ruminant animals. He soon realized that glycans and what they did in the rumen was a missing piece of the puzzle.
“Carbohydrates are very diverse molecules and they perform very diverse functions…. (The) guts of an animal are lined with very complex carbohydrates. These carbohydrates do change … and are modified during some diseases,” he said.
“It became clear (to me) that we actually don’t have a lot of tools to study the carbohydrates in agriculture.”
To tackle that issue, Abbott helped form a group of agricultural scientists across Canada who would dedicate part of their research to glycomics and its potential uses in agriculture.
A number of federal researchers and university scientists are now using glycomics to understand areas such as bacterial infections in poultry and what happens to a plant’s carbohydrates when it is infected with a disease.
As an example of their research, Abbott is collaborating with Stacy Singer, a forage biotechnologist at Agriculture Canada who studies the genetics of alfalfa and other crops.
They are looking at the cell walls of the alfalfa plants and how they are structured.
“We currently have a project where we’re attempting to shift cell wall carbohydrates a bit as a means of trying to enhance digestibility (and possibly also plant size) in alfalfa,” Singer said in an email.
“It’s in really early stages right now so we don’t have any preliminary data. However, I definitely think it’s a promising approach.”
What’s the future for glycomics?
It’s hard to predict what innovations will come from glycomics because scientists are still trying to understand these sugars and their functions. In a way, it’s almost like the early days of genome sequencing of crops.
However, Abbott believes the field is wide open for major discoveries.
“There’s been no science done in the area of glycomics (and) what’s happening in the respiratory tract of animals that are sick,” he said.
“We’re convinced it’s an interaction between the bacteria and viruses that cause the disease … and the (animal) response, which involves the carbohydrate lining of the respiratory tract.”
It could take years to piece together these scientific puzzles, but funding will likely continue because the study of sugars is now receiving national and international attention.
In 2022, Abbott and his glycomics team won the Outstanding Achievement in Science Prize, an Agriculture Canada award that highlights the excellent work of public servants.
And also last year, Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for her research into the structure of sugars, bringing glycomics fully onto the world stage.
