Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 14, 2016; 22(42): 9288-9299
Published online Nov 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i42.9288
Glycoproteins and glycoproteomics in pancreatic cancer
Sheng Pan, Teresa A Brentnall, Ru Chen
Sheng Pan, Teresa A Brentnall, Ru Chen, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Author contributions: Pan S wrote the manuscript; Chen R and Brentnall TA reviewed and contributed to the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Sheng Pan, PhD, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific St., Seattle, WA 98195, United States. shengp@medicine.washington.edu
Telephone: +1-206-6853632 Fax: +1-206-6859478
Received: June 29, 2016
Peer-review started: June 30, 2016
First decision: August 8, 2016
Revised: August 23, 2016
Accepted: September 14, 2016
Article in press: September 14, 2016
Published online: November 14, 2016
Abstract

Aberrations in protein glycosylation and polysaccharides play a pivotal role in pancreatic tumorigenesis, influencing cancer progression, metastasis, immuno-response and chemoresistance. Abnormal expression in sugar moieties can impact the function of various glycoproteins, including mucins, surface receptors, adhesive proteins, proteoglycans, as well as their effectors and binding ligands, resulting in an increase in pancreatic cancer invasiveness and a cancer-favored microenvironment. Recent advance in glycoproteomics, glycomics and other chemical biology techniques have been employed to better understand the complex mechanism of glycosylation events and how they orchestrate molecular activities in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics implicated in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. A variety of strategies have been demonstrated targeting protein glycosylation and polysaccharides for diagnostic and therapeutic development.

Keywords: Glycoproteins, Glycosylation, Proteomics, Glycoproteomics, Pancreatic cancer, Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Core tip: Protein glycosylation plays an important role in pancreatic tumorigenesis. Malignance induced changes in protein glycosylation can profoundly impact the function of a protein in multiple ways. One approach for developing better diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in pancreatic cancer involves targeting cancer-associated aberrant glycosylation. This review discusses the recent discoveries in glycoproteomics study of pancreatic cancer.