An insight into the cells’ glycans and lectin-glycosensing sites

Metabolic Labeling of Malignant Breast Cells Resistance to Chemotherapy with N-Glycolylneuraminic Acid Allows Differential Surface Detection

“…MCF-10/A, a human normal mammary epithelial cell line, and MCF-7/H, a chemotherapy-resistant breast cancer cell line, were a generous gift from the lab of Prof. Chen-Zhong Li (Miami, USA) and cultivated in 175 cm 2 flasks in RPMI1640 culture medium (no antibiotics given to prevent sialyltransferase inhibition), enriched with 1% FBS (to reduce BSA glycan-sialylation interference), at 37 °C under 5% CO2 [24,25]. The media for MCF-10/A cells also included 10 g/ml insulin and 5 g/ml hydrocortisone.…”

Harnessing cancer cell metabolism for theranostic applications using metabolic glycoengineering of sialic acid in breast cancer as a pioneering example

“…Compounding the challenge of unraveling and understanding sialylation in specific and glycosylation overall, it is becoming increasingly evident that “energetics” – exemplified by the Warburg effect where cancer cells greatly-increased amounts of glucose – also modulates glycan biosynthesis. In our opinion, the impact of metabolic flux on cell surface glycosylation including the biosynthesis of TACAs has not been adequately explored, especially in the context of nutrient deprivation [103]. Because of the relative dearth of information describing how aberrant energy metabolism alters cell surface glycosylation (including sialylated TACAs), this article will cover this topic next by providing a brief overview of metabolic challenges faced by a nascent tumor (in Section 3.1 ) and then give a description of how the Warburg effect is linked to glycosylation via the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway and downstream “ O -GlcNAc” modification of intracellular proteins (in Section 3.2 ).…”

“…We believe that the metabolic signatures of cancer cells under nutrient deprivation that can now be unravelled using new tools and approaches that are providing immense benefits across many aspects of the “glycosciences” provide unparalleled opportunities to discover new TACAs, or to utilize known TACAs in more skillful and meaningful ways. For example, because cell surface glycans offer a surprisingly comprehensive snapshot into the internal metabolic status of a cell and by cataloging these changes under various states of nutrient availability [101, 103, 182–186], TACA profiles that indicate the “energetics” status of cancer cell could be used to assess the stage of cancer and then to suggest a treatment strategy. In particular, we focus on nutrient-deprived breast cancer cells that efficiently take up sialic acids used to restore cell surface display of this sugar [75, 76, 101].…”