Direct Screening of Glycan Patterns from Human Sera: A Selective Glycoprotein Microarray Strategy.

Protein glycosylation is one of the most complicated but significant post-translational modifications. Minor alterations in glycan structure can considerably affect the biology of a cell. Therefore, direct monitoring of glycan patterns of glycoproteins is closely related to cancer progression as well as metastasis. In this study, a boronic acid (BA)-tosyl-directed strategy to selectively immobilize glycoproteins on glass slides was successfully developed even in the presence of high-abundant nonglycosylated proteins. To enhance the immobilization efficiency and reduce the undesired nonspecific absorption, the strain-promoted alkyne azide cycloaddition (SPAAC) conjugation chemistry and surface blocking conditions were carefully optimized for the collection of reliable data. The optimized glycoprotein microarray platform describes specific lectin-recognition patterns of glycoproteins of interest in E. coil lysate and fetal bovine serum (FBS), which encourages us for direct monitoring of glycan patterns from human sera without tedious sample preparation. Three serum groups comprised of healthy controls and lung cancer and pancreatic cancer patients were analyzed by this new technique. Remarkably, the distinguishable glycan patterns of the three groups make them a powerful platform for cancer screening and prediagnosis.

Traceless labeling of glycoproteins and its application to the study of glycoprotein-protein interactions.

A new chemical method for the traceless labeling of glycoproteins with synthetic boronic acid (BA)-tosyl probes was successfully developed. The BA moiety acts as an affinity head to direct the formation of a cyclic boronate diester with the diol groups of glycans. Following this step, the electrophilic tosyl group is displaced by an SN2 reaction with a nucleophilic residue of the boronated glycoprotein, and finally, a reporter group is tagged onto the glycoprotein via an ether linkage. In the presence of polyols, a competition reaction recovers the native glycan of the tagged glycoprotein, conserving its biological significance. The BA-tosyl probes were used successfully for the specific labeling of glycosylated fetuins in a mixed protein pool and from crude Escherichia coli (E. coli) lysate. Further, a BA-tosyl-functionalized glass slide was used to fabricate glycoprotein microarrays with highly conserved glycans. By interacting with various lectins (carbohydrate-binding proteins), such as Concanavalin A (Con A) and wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), the types of carbohydrates and specific linkages of glycoproteins (α or ß) could be systematically monitored. It is believed that the newly developed method will greatly accelerate the understanding of glycoproteins.