Although the importance of glycosylation has been thoroughly recognized in association with a number of biological processes, efficient assessments of glycans have been hampered by both the limited size of specimens and lengthy sample preparations, particularly in clinical settings. Here we report a simple preparative method for N-glycan analyses. It involves only short one-step chloroform-methanol extraction in presence or absence of water prior to PNGase F deglycosylation. The procedure was successfully applied to the investigation of N-glycans obtained from small numbers of in vitro cultured cancer cells (≤1 × 10(5)) and to tumor tissues, including patient biopsies of small size. MALDI-MS analysis confirmed the efficient release of all N-glycan types including complex forms with poly-N-acetyllactosamine chains. In addition, nonaqueous extraction of specimens from several established cancer cell lines, as well as patient tumor tissues, yielded high-mannose glycans with one GlcNAc moiety (Man3-9GlcNAc), strongly suggesting preservation of enzymatic activity analogous to Endo H enzyme. In summary, the method is both a step toward the practical use of glycan profiling and a way to detect Endo H-like activity in cancer specimens.
Keywords: Biopsy; EndoH; cancer cells; glycans; glycosylation; mass spectrometry; tumor tissue.