Comparative studies on the structural features of O-glycans between leukemia and epithelial cell lines

J Proteome Res. 2009 Feb;8(2):521-37. doi: 10.1021/pr800710f.

Abstract

Recently, we developed an automated apparatus for rapid releasing of O-glycans from mucin-type glycoproteins and proteoglycans ( Anal. Biochem. 2007 , 362 , 245 - 251 ; 2007 , 371 , 52 - 61 ). In the present paper, we released O-glycans from some leukemia and epithelial cells using the apparatus, and compared the profiles of O-glycans among these cells after fluorescent labeling of the released glycans with 2-aminobenzoic acid. The fluorescent labeled glycans were analyzed using a combination of HPLC and off-line MALDI-(QIT)TOF mass spectrometry We found that leukemia cells generally showed simple glycan profiles and commonly contained sialyl-T (NeuAcalpha2-3Galbeta1-3GalNAc) and disialyl-T (NeuAcalpha2-3Galbeta1-3(NeuAcalpha2-6)GalNAc) antigens as major O-glycans. In contrast, epithelial cancer cell lines usually showed extremely complex profiles. We found that polylactosamine-type O-glycans were abundantly present in MKN45 cells. Especially, we found characteristic glycans, of which Galbeta1-3 residue of core1 structure is modified with biantennary polylactosamine units. In contrast, this cell line did not contain polylactosamine-type N-glycans ( J. Proteome Res. 2006 , 5 , 88 - 97 ). These results suggest that the different biosynthetic pathways for N- and O-glycans are proposed. The method presented here will accelerate the speed for comprehensive analysis of O-glycans in biological samples and will be a powerful tool for clinical/biochemical analysis in cancer biology.

MeSH terms

  • Carbohydrate Conformation
  • Carbohydrate Sequence
  • Cell Line / chemistry
  • Cell Line / metabolism
  • Cell Line, Tumor / chemistry
  • Cell Line, Tumor / metabolism
  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / methods*
  • Epithelial Cells / chemistry*
  • Epithelial Cells / cytology
  • Epithelial Cells / pathology
  • Humans
  • Leukemia / metabolism*
  • Leukemia / pathology
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / chemistry*
  • Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / metabolism
  • Polysaccharides / chemistry*
  • Polysaccharides / metabolism
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization / methods*

Substances

  • Polysaccharides