Members of the polypeptide N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase (GALNT) family function as the initiating enzymes that catalyze mucin-type O-glycosylation of proteins, and their dysregulated expression can alter cancer cell behaviors such as de novo occurrence, proliferation, migration, metastasis, and drug resistance. Recent studies have demonstrated that one of the family's members, GALNT14, is aberrantly expressed in multiple cancers and involved in a variety of biological functions. Moreover, the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of GALNT14-rs9679162 have been shown to predict therapeutic outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma as well as several other different types of gastrointestinal cancer. This review summarizes the structural features of GANLT14, its functional roles, and the predictive values of GALNT14 genotypes and enzyme levels in multiple cancers receiving distinct anticancer therapies.
Keywords: biomarker; cancer; polypeptide N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase; single nucleotide polymorphism.