• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.139-145
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• 2022

Protein glycosylation is a common post-translational modification by non-template-based biosynthesis. In fungal biotechnology, which has great applications in pharmaceuticals and industries, the importance of research on fungal glycoproteins and glycans is accelerating. In particular, the importance of quantitative analysis of fungal glycans is emerging in research on the production of filamentous fungal proteins by genetic modification. Reliable mass spectrometry-based techniques for quantitative glycomics have evolved into chemical, enzymatic, and metabolic stable isotope labeling methods. In this study, we intend to expand quantitative glycomics by metabolic isotope labeling of glycans in Aspergillus niger, a filamentous fungus model, by the MILPIG method. We demonstrate that incubation of filamentous fungi in a culture medium with carbon-13 labeled glucose (1-¹³C₁) efficiently incorporates carbon-13 into N-linked glycans. In addition, for quantitative validation of this method, light and heavy glycans are mixed 1:1 to show the performance of quantitative analysis of various N-linked glycans simultaneously. We have successfully quantified fungal glycans by MILPIG and expect it to be widely applicable to glycan expression levels under various biological conditions in fungi.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.121-140
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• 2024

Proteoform diversity is greatly increased by glycosylation, the primary post-translational modification of proteins. Glycans, also known as oligosaccharides, are molecules that are essential to almost all living things. They can affect protein folding and functionality, modulate cell-cell interactions, and support the proliferation of numerous diseases when they are found on cell surfaces or bound to proteins. A thorough understanding of their fundamental structure is necessary to gain insight into their characteristics and functions. But a major obstacle is the structural intricacy of glycans by design. The stereochemistry and regiochemistry of carbohydrates vary and are frequently branched. Because of its superior sensitivity and the abundance of fragmentation information it can provide, mass spectrometry is now the method of choice for glycan and glycopeptide analysis. Differentiating between the structures of isomeric and isobaric glycopeptides, however, presents a difficulty for MS-based characterization. Ion mobility plus mass spectrometry (IM-MS) has become a very promising new method for glycan research in recent years. Recent developments in the growing discipline of glycosylation analysis utilizing IM-MS are outlined in this review, with a focus on the MS methodology and its ability to resolve isomeric glycans.

• BMB Reports
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• v.44 no.12
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• pp.772-781
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• 2011

Branched N-glycans are produced by a series of glycosyltransferases including N-acetylglucosaminyltransferases and fucosyltransferases and their corresponding genes. Glycans on specific glycoproteins, which are attached via the action of glycosyltransferases, play key roles in cell adhesion and signaling. Examples of this are adhesion molecules or signaling molecules such as integrin and E-cadherin, as well as membrane receptors such as the EGF and TGF-${\beta}$ receptors. These molecules also play pivotal roles in the underlying mechanism of a variety of disease such as cancer metastasis, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Alterations in the structures of branched N-glycans are also hall marks and are useful for cancer biomarkers and therapeutics against cancer. This mini-review describes some of our recent studies on a functional glycomics approach to the study of branched N-glycans produced by N-acetylglucosaminyltransferases III, IV, V and IX (Vb) (GnT-III, GnT-IV, V and IX (Vb)) and fucosyltransferase 8 (Fut8) and their pathophysiological significance, with emphasis on the importance of a systems glycobiology approach as a future perspective for glycobiology.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.292-304
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• 2010

High value-added therapeutic proteins have been leading the biologics industry and occupied major portion of the market. More than 60% of the currently available protein therapeutics are glycoproteins attached with glycans which play crucial roles for the protein folding, therapeutic efficacy, in vivo half-life and immunogenecity. This review introduces the process of glycosylation and the impacts of glycans in the aspects of therapeutics. The important glycan structures in therapeutic performances were also summarized focusing on three representative categories of glycoproteins, cytokines, therapeutic antibody and enzyme. Currently, mammalian expression systems such as Chinese hamster ovary cells are preferred for the production of therapeutic glycoproteins due to their ability to synthesize glycans having similar structures with human type glycans. However, recent advances of plant glycoengineering to overcome the limitation originating from different glycan structures will soon allow to develop more efficient and economic plant-based production systems for therapeutic glycoproteins.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.14-17
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• 2017

The effect of cationization agent concentration on glycan detection via matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was investigated using $Na^+$ ions in the form of NaCl as the cationization agent. NaCl solution concentrations ranging from 1 mM to 1 M were investigated. Glycans from ovalbumin were mixed with the cationization agent solution and the 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5-DHB) matrix solution in a volume ratio of 1:1:1. The resulting mixture was loaded onto the MALDI plate. Two MALDI-TOF MS instruments (Voyager DE-STR MALDI-TOF MS and Tinkerbell RT MALDI-TOF MS) were used for detection of glycans. The best detection, in terms of the number of identified glycans, the peak intensity, and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, was obtained with NaCl concentrations of 0.01-0.1 M for both MALDI-TOF MS instruments.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.416-423
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• 2007

Alterations in the glycan chains of cell surface glycoconjugates are frequently involved biological processes such as cell-cell interaction, cell migration, differentiation and development. Cultured embryonic (E18) rat cortical neurons underwent apoptosis in response to camptothecin, and lectin histochemistry showed that binding to apoptotic neurons of FITC-conjugated Maackia amurensis agglutinin (MAA), which is specific for terminal ${\alpha}2,3$-sialic acid residues, increased progressively with increasing concentrations of camptothecin. Analysis of the total proteins of apoptotic neurons by SDS-PAGE, and lectin blotting using HRP-labeled MAA, revealed that the expression of terminal ${\alpha}2,3$-sialic acid residues on an unknown protein with an apparent molecular mass of 25.6 kDa also increased in apoptotic neurons. NP-HPLC analysis of the total cellular N-glycans of normal and apoptotic neurons demonstrated that the expression of structurally simpler biantennary types of N-glycans fell by 49% during apoptosis whereas the more branched triantennary types of N-glycans with terminal sialic acid residues increased by up to 59%. These results suggest that increased surface expression of ${\alpha}2,3$-sialic acid residues and hyperglycosylation of N-glycans is a common feature of cellular responses to changes in cell physiology such as tumorigenesis and apoptosis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.691-695
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• 2016

Protein glycosylation is the most common posttranslational modification in mammalian cells. Aberrant protein glycosylation has been reported in various diseases, including cancer. We identified and quantified the glycan structures of O-linked glycoprotein from cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cell lines from different histological types and compared their profiles by nanospray ionization-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (NSI-$MS^n$). Five human CCA cell lines, K100, M055, M139, M213 and M214 were characterized. The results showed that the O-linked glycans of the CCA cell lines comprised tri- to hexa-saccharides with terminal galactose and sialic acids: NeuAc1Gal1GalNAc1, Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1, NeuAc2Gal1GalNAc1 NeuAc1Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1 and NeuAc2Gal2GlcNAc1GalNAc1 All five CCA cell lines showed a similar glycan pattern, but with differences in their quantities. NeuAc1Gal1GalNAc1 proved to be the most abundant structure in poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma (K100; 57.1%), moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma (M055; 42.6%) and squamous cell carcinoma (M139; 43.0%), while moderately to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma (M214; 40.1%) and adenosquamous cell carcinoma (M213; 34.7%) appeared dominated by $NeuA_{c2}Gal_1GalNA_{c1}$. These results demonstrate differential expression of the O-linked glycans in the different histological types of CCA. All five CCA cell lines have abundant terminal sialic acid (NeuAc) O-linked glycans, suggesting an important role for sialic acid in cancer cells. Our structural analyses of glycans may provide important information regarding physiology of disease-related glycoproteins in CCA.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.250-257
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• 2013

Biosimilars are important drugs in medicine and contain many glycosylated proteins. Thorough analysis of the glycosylated protein is a prerequisite for evaluation of biosimilar glycan drugs. A method to assess the diversity of N-glycosylation sites and N-glycans from biosimilar glycan drugs has been developed using two separate methods, LC-MS/MS and MALDI-TOF MS, respectively. Development of sensitive, accurate, and efficient methods for evaluation of glycoproteins is still needed. In this study, analysis of both N-glycosylation sites and N-glycans of glycoprotein was performed using the same LC-MS/MS with two different nano-LC columns, nano-C18 and nano-porous graphitized carbon (nano-PGC) columns. N-glycosylated proteins, including RNAse B (one N-glycosylation site), Fetuin (three sites), and ${\alpha}$-1 acid glycoprotein (four sites), were used, and small amounts of each protein were used for identification of N-glycosylation sites. In addition, high mannose N-glycans (one type of typical glycan structure), Mannose 5 and 9, eluted from RNAse B, were successfully identified using nano-PGC-LC MS/MS analysis, and the abundance of each glycan from the glycoprotein was calculated. This study demonstrated an accurate and efficient method for determination of N-glycosylation sites and N-glycans of glycoproteins based on high sensitive LC-MS/MS using two different nano-columns; this method could be applied for evaluation of the quality of various biosimilar drugs containing N-glycosylation groups.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.163-170
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• 2021

Enzyme replacement therapy for lysosomal storage diseases usually requires recombinant enzymes containing mannose-6-phosphate (M6P) glycans for cellular uptake and lysosomal targeting. For the first time, a strategy is established here for the in vitro mannosyl-phosphorylation of high-mannose type N-glycans that utilizes a recombinant Mnn14 protein derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Among a series of N-terminal- or C-terminal-deleted recombinant Mnn14 proteins expressed in Pichia pastoris, rMnn1477-935 with deletion of N-terminal 76 amino acids spanning the transmembrane domain (46 amino acids) and part of the stem region (30 amino acids), showed the highest level of mannosyl-phosphorylation activity. The optimum reaction conditions for rMnn1477-935 were determined through enzyme assays with a high-mannose type N-glycan (Man8GlcNAc2) as a substrate. In addition, rMnn1477-935 was shown to mannosyl-phosphorylate high-mannose type N-glycans (Man7-9GlcNAc2) on recombinant human lysosomal alpha-glucosidase (rhGAA) with remarkably high efficiency. Moreover, the majority of the resulting mannosyl-phosphorylated glycans were bis-form which can be converted to bis-phosphorylated M6P glycans having a superior lysosomal targeting capability. An in vitro N-glycan mannosyl-phosphorylation reaction using rMnn1477-935 will provide a flexible and straightforward method to increase the M6P glycan content for the generation of "Biobetter" therapeutic enzymes.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.38-40
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• 2013

Glycans released from ovalbumin by PNGase F were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry using three different dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHB) matrix systems: 2,5-DHB, 2,6-DHB, and a 2,5-DHB/2,6-DHB binary matrix. Relative to the results obtained with the single-component matrices (2,5-DHB or 2,6-DHB), the 2,5-DHB/2,6-DHB binary matrix boasted lower background noise and higher sensitivity. A total of 16 glycan peaks were observed using the 2,5-DHB/2,6-DHB binary matrix, while only 10 and 9 glycan peaks were observed using the 2,5-DHB and 2,6-DHB matrices, respectively.