When cancer progresses, O-type glycans are truncated and Tn-antigen (α-GalNAc) is highly expressed as a result. However, the relationship between the high expression of Tn-antigens and the proliferation and metastasis of cancer cells has not yet been fully studied.
The following group used a colorectal cancer model in mice (using MC38 cells) to study how Tn-antigen influences its gene expression, by using CRISPR/Cas-9 to create a cell line MC38-Tn(high) that lacks a glycosyltransferase (C1galt1c1) involved in the elongation of Tn-antigen to T-antigen (Galβ1-3GalNAc）.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fonc.2020.01622/full
As a result, changes in expression levels occurred in 1,348 genes (with log2 fold change), 641 genes were down regulated, and 707 genes were up regulated.
Comprehensively, signal paths related to antigen presentation and T-cell activation are suppressed, and seems to be changing in the direction of enhancing the growth and metastasis of cancer cells.
