Glycosylation and metastases.

The change of cellular glycosylation is one of the key events in malignant transformation and neoplastic progression, and tumor-related glycosylation alterations are promising targets in both tumor diagnosis and therapy. Both malignant transformation and neoplastic progression are the consequence of gene expression alterations and alterations in protein expression. Micro environmental factors such as extracellular matrix (ECM) also play an important role in their growth and metastasis. Tumor-associated glycans are important biomarker candidates for cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and analytical methods for their detection were developed recently. Glycoproteomics that use mass spectrometry for identification of cancer antigens and structural analysis of glycans play a key role in the investigation of changes of glycosylation during malignant transformation and tumor development and metastasis. Deep understanding of glycan remodeling in cancer and the role of glycosyltransferases that are involved in this process will require a detailed profiling of glycosylation patterns of tumor cells, and corresponding analytical methods for their detection were developed.