Molecules 2012, 17(8), 9559-9572; doi:10.3390/molecules17089559
Article

Accumulation of Unusual Gangliosides GQ3 and GP3 in Breast Cancer Cells Expressing the GD3 Synthase

Agata Steenackers 1,† email, Jorick Vanbeselaere 1,† email, Aurélie Cazet 1,‡ email, Marie Bobowski 1 email, Yoann Rombouts 1,# email, Florent Colomb 1 email, Xuefen Le Bourhis 2 email, Yann Guérardel 1 email and Philippe Delannoy 1,* email
1 Structural and Functional Glycobiology Unit, UMR CNRS 8576, University of Sciences and Technologies of Lille, 59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France 2 INSERM U908, University of Sciences and Technologies of Lille, 59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq, France † These authors contributed equally to this work. ‡ Current address: Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia # Current address: Department of Rheumatology, Leiden University Medical Center, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 18 June 2012; in revised form: 20 July 2012 / Accepted: 6 August 2012 / Published: 10 August 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry)
PDF Full-text Download PDF Full-Text [457 KB, uploaded 10 August 2012 09:21 CEST]
Abstract: Glycosphingolipids from the ganglio-series are usually classified in four series according to the presence of 0 to 3 sialic acid residues linked to lactosylceramide. The transfer of sialic acid is catalyzed in the Golgi apparatus by specific sialyltransferases that show high specificity toward glycolipid substrates. ST8Sia I (EC 2.4.99.8, SAT-II, SIAT 8a) is the key enzyme controlling the biosynthesis of b- and c-series gangliosides. ST8Sia I is expressed at early developmental stages whereas in adult human tissues, ST8Sia I transcripts are essentially detected in brain. ST8Sia I together with b- and c-series gangliosides are also over-expressed in neuroectoderm-derived malignant tumors such as melanoma, glioblastoma, neuroblastoma and in estrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer, where they play a role in cell proliferation, migration, adhesion and angiogenesis. We have stably expressed ST8Sia I in MCF-7 breast cancer cells and analyzed the glycosphingolipid composition of wild type (WT) and GD3S+ clones. As shown by mass spectrometry, MCF-7 expressed a complex pattern of neutral and sialylated glycosphingolipids from globo- and ganglio-series. WT MCF-7 cells exhibited classical monosialylated gangliosides including GM3, GM2, and GM1a. In parallel, the expression of ST8Sia I in MCF-7 GD3S+ clones resulted in a dramatic change in ganglioside composition, with the expression of b- and c-series gangliosides as well as unusual tetra- and pentasialylated lactosylceramide derivatives GQ3 (II3Neu5Ac4-Gg2Cer) and GP3 (II3Neu5Ac5-Gg2Cer). This indicates that ST8Sia I is able to act as an oligosialyltransferase in a cellular context.
Keywords: gangliosides; GD3 synthase; MCF-7; unusual gangliosides

Article Statistics

Click here to load and display the download statistics.

Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

Steenackers, A.; Vanbeselaere, J.; Cazet, A.; Bobowski, M.; Rombouts, Y.; Colomb, F.; Bourhis, X.L.; Guérardel, Y.; Delannoy, P. Accumulation of Unusual Gangliosides GQ3 and GP3 in Breast Cancer Cells Expressing the GD3 Synthase. Molecules 2012, 17, 9559-9572.

AMA Style

Steenackers A, Vanbeselaere J, Cazet A, Bobowski M, Rombouts Y, Colomb F, Bourhis XL, Guérardel Y, Delannoy P. Accumulation of Unusual Gangliosides GQ3 and GP3 in Breast Cancer Cells Expressing the GD3 Synthase. Molecules. 2012; 17(8):9559-9572.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Steenackers, Agata; Vanbeselaere, Jorick; Cazet, Aurélie; Bobowski, Marie; Rombouts, Yoann; Colomb, Florent; Bourhis, Xuefen Le; Guérardel, Yann; Delannoy, Philippe. 2012. "Accumulation of Unusual Gangliosides GQ3 and GP3 in Breast Cancer Cells Expressing the GD3 Synthase." Molecules 17, no. 8: 9559-9572.

Molecules EISSN 1420-3049 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert