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• Pochechueva, T
• Jacob, F
• Fedier, A
• Heinzelmann-Schwarz, V
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• Pochechueva, T
• Jacob, F
• Fedier, A
• Heinzelmann-Schwarz, V
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• Pochechueva, T
• Jacob, F
• Fedier, A
• Heinzelmann-Schwarz, V

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Metabolites 2012, 2(4), 913-939; doi:10.3390/metabo2040913

Review

Tumor-Associated Glycans and Their Role in Gynecological Cancers: Accelerating Translational Research by Novel High-Throughput Approaches

Tatiana Pochechueva * , Francis Jacob, Andre Fedier and Viola Heinzelmann-Schwarz

Gynecological Research Group, Department of Biomedicine, University Hospital Basel, Hebelstrasse 20, 4031 Basel, Switzerland

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 31 October 2012; in revised form: 8 November 2012 / Accepted: 9 November 2012 / Published: 14 November 2012

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Glycomics and Glycoproteomics)

Download PDF Full-Text [373 KB, uploaded 14 November 2012 10:00 CET]

Abstract: Glycans are important partners in many biological processes, including carcinogenesis. The rapidly developing field of functional glycomics becomes one of the frontiers of biology and biomedicine. Aberrant glycosylation of proteins and lipids occurs commonly during malignant transformation and leads to the expression of specific tumor-associated glycans. The appearance of aberrant glycans on carcinoma cells is typically associated with grade, invasion, metastasis and overall poor prognosis. Cancer-associated carbohydrates are mostly located on the surface of cancer cells and are therefore potential diagnostic biomarkers. Currently, there is increasing interest in cancer-associated aberrant glycosylation, with growing numbers of characteristic cancer targets being detected every day. Breast and ovarian cancer are the most common and lethal malignancies in women, respectively, and potential glycan biomarkers hold promise for early detection and targeted therapies. However, the acceleration of research and comprehensive multi-target investigation of cancer-specific glycans could only be successfully achieved with the help of a combination of novel high-throughput glycomic approaches.

Keywords: carbohydrate; malignancy; anti-glycan antibodies; tumor marker; microarray; glycomics; breast cancer; ovarian cancer

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