Glucose-derived posttranslational modification in cardiovascular disease

Glucose and its metabolites provide building blocks for cellular structures and modifications occurring on proteins, lipids and nucleotides. The underlying reactions consist of glycosylations controlled by hundreds of enzymes following a specific yet incompletely understood architecture of cell physiology and glycations as random, not controlled modifications occurring in an oxidative environment. In both cases attachments of glucose or its metabolites can modulate the tertiary structure of proteins as required for cellular physiology or cause disturbance with disease driving pathology. In this review we will discuss the relevance of glucose dependent cellular modifications for cardiovascular complications.