This viscous coating is the glycocalyx that consists of several carbohydrate moieties of membrane glycolipids and glycoproteins, which serve as backbone molecules for support.

Generally, the carbohydrate portion of the glycolipids found on the surface of plasma membranes helps these molecules contribute to cell–cell recognition, communication, and intercellular adhesion.

[3] The glycocalyx plays a major role in regulation of endothelial vascular tissue, including the modulation of red blood cell volume in capillaries.

The glycocalyx also consists of a wide range of enzymes and proteins that regulate leukocyte and thrombocyte adherence, since its principal role in the vasculature is to maintain plasma and vessel-wall homeostasis.

Leukocytes must not stick to the vascular wall because they are important components of the immune system that must be able to travel to a specific region of the body when needed.

In arterial vascular tissue, the glycocalyx also inhibits coagulation and leukocyte adhesion, but through mediation of shear stress-induced nitric oxide release.

[11] Other sources of damage to the endothelial glycocalyx have been observed in several pathological conditions such as inflammation,[12] hyperglycemia,[13] ischemia-reperfusion,[14] viral infections[15] and sepsis.

[17] Research shows that plasma hyaluronidase activity is decreased in experimental as well as in clinical septic shock and is therefore not considered to be a sheddase in sepsis.

Bacteria growing in natural ecosystems, such as in soil, bovine intestines, or the human urinary tract, are surrounded by some sort of glycocalyx-enclosed microcolony.

It creates a meshwork 0.3 μm thick and consists of acidic mucopolysaccharides and glycoproteins that project from the apical plasma membrane of epithelial absorptive cells.

It provides additional surface for adsorption and includes enzymes secreted by the absorptive cells that are essential for the final steps of digestion of proteins and sugars.