Analysis of Mammalian O-Glycopeptides-We Have Made a Good Start, but There is a Long Way to Go

Glycosylation is perhaps the most common post-translational modification. Recently there has been growing interest in cataloging the glycan structures, glycoproteins, and specific sites modified and deciphering the biological functions of glycosylation. Although the results are piling up for N-glycosylation, O-glycosylation is seriously trailing behind. In our review we reiterate the difficulties researchers have to overcome in order to characterize O-glycosylation. We describe how an ingenious cell engineering method delivered exciting results, and what could we gain from wild-type samples. Although we refer to the biological role(s) of O-glycosylation, we do not provide a complete inventory on this topic.