Ablation of Intestinal Epithelial Sialylation Predisposes to Acute and Chronic Intestinal Inflammation in Mice.

Background & Aims: Addition of sialic acids (sialylation) to glycoconjugates is a common capping step of glycosylation. Our study aims to determine the roles of the overall sialylation in intestinal mucosal homeostasis.

Methods: Mice with constitutive deletion of intestinal epithelial sialylation (IEC Slc35a1 mice) and mice with inducible deletion of sialylation in intestinal epithelium (TM-IEC Slc35a1 mice) were generated, which were used to determine the roles of overall sialylation in intestinal mucosal homeostasis by ex vivo and mutiomics studies.