Affiliations: Unitat de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular,
Departament de Biologia, Universitat de Girona, Campus de Montilivi s/n,
Girona, Spain | Dublin-Oxford Glycobiology Laboratory, NIBRT, Conway
Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
Note: [] Corresponding author: Unitat de Bioquímica i Biologia
Molecular, Departament de Biologia, Universitat de Girona, Campus de Montilivi
s/n, 17071 Girona, Spain. Fax: +34 972418150; E-mail: rosa.peracaula@udg.es
Abstract: The lack of specific and sensitive tumour markers for early
detection of cancer is driving a search for new approaches that could identify
biomarkers. Markers are needed to alert clinicians at the early stages of
tumourogenesis, before the cancer has metastasized, when the therapeutic drugs
are more effective. Most tumour markers currently used in clinics are serum
glycoproteins, frequently highly glycosylated mucins. Typically, the disease
marker is the protein and not the glycan moiety of the corresponding
glycoprotein or mucin. The increasing knowledge of the role of glycans in
cancer suggests that further studies may assist both in determining their role
in every step of tumour progression, and in the design of new therapeutic and
diagnosic approaches. Detection of the altered glycans in serum tumour
glycoproteins could be a way to achieve specificity in tumour detection. In
this review, we focus on the glycan changes of two serum glycoproteins,
prostate specific antigen - currently used as a tumour marker of prostate
cancer - and human pancreatic ribonuclease in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The
detection of glycan changes, associated with subsets of glycoforms in serum
glycoproteins that are specific to the tumour situation, could be the basis for
developing more specific biomarkers.
Keywords: Glycosylation, tumour markers, prostate specific antigen, human pancreatic ribonuclease
Journal: Disease Markers, vol. 25, no. 4-5, pp. 207-218, 2008
