Changes in glycosylation are often a hallmark of disease states. For example, cancer cells frequently display glycans at different levels or with fundamentally different structures than those observed on normal cells. This phenomenon was first described in the early 1970s, but the molecular details underlying such transformations were poorly understood. In the past decade advances in genomics, proteomics and mass spectrometry have enabled the association of specific glycan structures with disease states. In some cases, the functional significance of disease-associated changes in glycosylation has been revealed. This review highlights changes in glycosylation associated with cancer and chronic inflammation and new therapeutic and diagnostic strategies that are based on the underlying glycobiology.
Cell surfaces are endowed with biological functionality designed to mediate extracellular communication. The cell-surface repertoire can be expanded to include abiotic functionality through the biosynthetic introduction of unnatural sugars into cellular glycans, a process termed metabolic oligosaccharide engineering. This technique has been exploited in fundamental studies of glycan-dependent cell-cell and virus-cell interactions and also provides an avenue for the chemical remodelling of living cells. Unique chemical functional groups can be delivered to cell-surface glycans by metabolism of the corresponding unnatural precursor sugars. These functional groups can then undergo covalent reaction with exogenous agents bearing complementary functionality. The exquisite chemical selectivity required of this process is supplied by the Staudinger ligation of azides and phosphines, a reaction that has been performed on cultured cells without detriment to their physiology. Here we demonstrate that the Staudinger ligation can be executed in living animals, enabling the chemical modification of cells within their native environment. The ability to tag cell-surface glycans in vivo may enable therapeutic targeting and non-invasive imaging of changes in glycosylation during disease progression.
Changes in O-linked protein glycosylation are known to correlate with disease states but are difficult to monitor in a physiological setting because of a lack of experimental tools. Here, we report a technique for rapid profiling of O-linked glycoproteins in living animals by metabolic labeling with N-azidoacetylgalactosamine (GalNAz) followed by Staudinger ligation with phosphine probes. After injection of mice with a peracetylated form of GalNAz, azide-labeled glycoproteins were observed in a variety of tissues, including liver, kidney, and heart, in serum, and on isolated splenocytes. B cell glycoproteins were robustly labeled with GalNAz but T cell glycoproteins were not, suggesting fundamental differences in glycosylation machinery or metabolism. Furthermore, GalNAz-labeled B cells could be selectively targeted with a phosphine probe by Staudinger ligation within the living animal. Metabolic labeling with GalNAz followed by Staudinger ligation provides a means for proteomic analysis of this posttranslational modification and for identifying O-linked glycoprotein fingerprints associated with disease.azide ͉ Staudinger ligation ͉ glycan ͉ N-azidoacetylgalactosamine ͉ metabolic labeling
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