Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Department of Parasitology, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
The glycome on the surface of tumor cells is altered during the cancer metastatic process. The altered expression of tumor-associated sialylated antigens and sialic acid biosynthetic enzymes result in an increased invasive potential.
In this study we have used different ’omics technologies to map the glycome, proteome and (glyco)-genome of isogenic human breast cancer cell lines, NM2C5 and M4A4, with different metastatic capability. The application of robust and sensitive enrichment methods combined with large scale quantitative proteomic, allowed us to quantitatively map more than 600 glycoproteins. Moreover we identified key enzymes involved in the sialic acid metabolism that were involved in the modulation of the glycosylation profile during cancer progression. Based on these analyses and functional studies, a promising candidate has been tested in vitro and in vivo and its expression has been evaluated in human breast cancer tissues.
Taken together these results show the importance of protein sialylation during breast cancer metastasis and offer a novel target for cancer therapy.