Hi everyone,
Suppose I want to look for glycan-bound (specifically O-acetylglucosamine-bound) molecules, such as certain proteins or lipids, in a cell sample. In this scenario, I am not interested where on the cell these molecules are, or what their glycans actually look like. I merely want to demonstrate presence/absence of glycans in these molecules (which I would have purified beforehand).
My question is this: many glycan-detection protocols use an azide-labelled glycan precursor, which is administered to the cells, is incorporated into cellular glycans, and which can subsequently be visualized via e.g. click chemistry. However, one can also buy certain antibodies against glycans, for example against O-acetylglucosamine. In the scenario above, would there be any reason to choose azide labelling over antibodies (or the other way around), and why?