“Decoding clustered glycans for targeted mucin recognition and breakdown”, talk presented as an invited lecture at the 14th Spanish Carbohydrate Meeting

The 14th Spanish Carbohydrate Meeting, organised by the Carbohydrate Group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (GEHIC-RSEQ), will bring together researchers from Spain and abroad at the Scientific Research Centre Isla de la Cartuja (CICCartuja) to discuss recent advances in carbohydrate chemistry and glycobiology. The meeting is one of Spain’s leading scientific forums dedicated to the study of carbohydrates and their biological functions.

Within this framework, Ramón Hurtado will deliver the invited lecture “Decoding clustered glycans for targeted mucin recognition and breakdown”, featured in the conference’s Keynote Lectures programme. The presentation will showcase recent structural and mechanistic studies exploring how microbial proteins recognise clustered O-glycans in mucins, key components of the protective mucosal barriers that line many tissues in the body.

Using the mucin-binding module X409 and the mucinase HC7 as examples, the research demonstrates how glycan density, spacing and peptide context generate specific recognition patterns that control both mucin binding and mucin degradation.

These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the interactions between microorganisms and mucosal surfaces, an area of research with significant implications for microbiology, biomedicine and the study of the molecular mechanisms governing host–microbe interactions.

Participation in the meeting will provide an opportunity to share these advances with the specialised scientific community and foster new opportunities for collaboration in research areas related to glycobiology, microbiology and structural biology.