Archive 24/12/20

A group from Division of Laboratory Diagnostics, Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Wroclaw Medical University, Poland has reprted about a new glycobiomarker, change in glycosylation pattern of serum clusterin, for discriminating Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).
https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/25/23/13060

PsA and RA are connective tissue autoimmune diseases.
The present study aimed to check whether serum clusterin (CLU) concentration and its glycosylation pattern may be markers differentiating these diseases.

The followings were found.
Clusterin concentrations were significantly lower in the sera of the RA patients compared to the PsA group, and there were no other significant differences between the examined groups in CLU concentration.

The relative reactivities of CLU glycans with SNA (α2-6 Sia binding lectin) were significantly higher in the RA and PsA patients in comparison to the control group. There were no significant differences between the studied groups in the relative reactivities of CLU glycans with MAA (α2-3 Sia binding lectin).

These results indicate that PsA and RA can be distinguished by CLU concentration and sialic acid modification (by SNA).

A group from Laboratory for Functional Glycomics, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710069, China has reported that β1-4 galactosylated glycan could inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090123224005666?via%3Dihub

It has been known that SARS-CoV-2-S protein has 22 potential N-glycosites and 17 O-glycosites, with 14 N-glycosites adorned with complex-type N-glycans, and ACE2 has a total of 7 N-glycosites, and most of these sites are occupied by complex-type N-glycans.

In this paper, it was demonstrated that the β1-4 galactosylated N-glycans of ACE2 play a crucial role as glycan receptors for the binding of S1 of SARS-CoV-2, and isolated glycoproteins harboring multivalent β1-4 galactosylated N-glycans exhibited the ability to competitively inhibit the interaction between S1 and ACE2, thereby preventing the attachment and entry of SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus into host cells. This may be a rather late article, but let me introduce it to you.

A group from Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, has reported that targeting Tn-antigen suppresses metastasis in breast Cancer.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcmm.70279

Tn antigen was prevalent in breast carcinomas, particularly within metastatic lesions. Tn antigen expression was positively correlated with lymph node metastasis and poorer patient survival. Tn antigen-expressing breast cancer cells exhibited enhanced invasiveness and metastasis, along with significant activation of EMT and FAK signaling pathways.

There was a significant downregulation of E-cadherin and ZO-1, both of which are canonical epithelial markers, along with a significant up-regulation of the mesenchymal markers, including ZEB-1, Vimentin, Snail, and Slug in both cells expressing Tn antigen

Targeting Tn-positive cancer cells with HPA demonstrated the suppression of invasive and metastatic capabilities. It is known that the lectin HPA specifically recognizes and binds the Tn antigen, whereas the lectin PNA only recognizes and binds T antigen. Compared to the PNA-treated control group, mice in HPA-treated group exhibited a significantly reduced number of pulmonary metastases. In addition, immunofluorescence analysis showed that HPA treatment reduced formation of cellular protrusions of Tn-positive cancer cells, whereas PNA showed no inhibitory effects. At the molecular level, the EMT and FAK signaling pathways were consistently inhibited in Tn-positive cancer cells treated with HPA.