Human Serum Glycoproteins Research Articles

Immunoglobulins are the major glycoproteins involved in the modifications of total serum N‐glycome in cirrhotic patients

N-glycosylation modifications in human serum glycoproteins have been described in hepatic cirrhosis. To identify the glycoproteins carrying these modifications and to determine their influences in the modification of the total serum N-glycome (TSNG) in cirrhotic patients, we have performed the glycosylation analysis of immunoglobulins, transferrin, 1 antitrypsin and haptoglobin of patients who have developed cirrhosis. The glycosylation analysis of immunoglobulins G, transferrin, 1 antitrypsin and haptoglobin of 14 patients who have developed cirrhosis and 11 healthy controls was performed using strategies based on MS, 2-DE and affinity chromatography. We demonstrated that the N-glycosylation of both hepatic and plasma cell secreted glycoproteins is modified, and that the major modifications of TSNG are carried by immunoglobulins A and G. The search for glycomic biomarkers used as an alternative to liver biopsy for the assessment of fibrosis in chronic liver disease is extremely important. Variations in the glycosylation of immunoglobulins are responsible for the main modifications affecting the TSNG and effector properties of the Fc of these molecules, and certainly contribute to the pathophysiology of fibrosis.

Evaluation of the Pattern of Human Serum Glycoproteins in Prostate Cancer

Evaluation of the Pattern of Human Serum Glycoproteins in Prostate CancerGlycoprotein profiling at the level of cells, tissues and biological fluids is aimed at discovering new cancer biomarkers and also at finding specific cancer-related structural alterations of known tumor markers. In this study we comparatively evaluated the glycoprotein patterns of human prostate cancer (PCa)- and normal human sera regarding sialylation and fucosylation as structural characteristics relevant for cancer progression. Glycoproteins were isolated using affinity chromatography on Sambucus nigra agglutinin- and Lens culinaris agglutinin-columns and subsequently characterized by SDS-PAGE and on-chip normal phase-surface capture combined with surface-enhanced laser/desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry. Comparative analysis of the glycoproteins purified from healthy and PCa sera indicated differences and redundancy of the isolated molecules in terms of the microheterogeneity of counterpart glycans, the relative abundance and the presence/absence of particular molecular species. In PCa there was a general increase in sialylation and decrease in fucosylation of human serum glycans compared to normal sera. Taken together, the results obtained indicated that an affinity-approach based on the use of lectins of narrow specificity reduced the complexity of the examined samples and at this discovery-phase of our study pointed to specific glyco-changes that may be relevant for improving the monitoring of PCa progression.

Label-free relative quantification method for low-abundance glycoproteins in human serum by micrOTOF-Q

In this study, a label-free relative quantification strategy was developed for quantifying low-abundance glycoproteins in human serum. It included three steps: (1) immunodepletion of 12 high-abundance proteins, (2) enrichment of low-abundance glycoproteins by multi-lectin column, (3) relative quantification of them between different samples by micrOTOF-Q. We also evaluated the specificity and efficiency of immunodepletion, the accuracy of protein quantification and the possible influence of immunodepletion, glycoprotein enrichment, trypsin digestion and peptide ionization on quantification. In conclusion, the relative quantification method can be effectively applied to the screening of low-abundance biomarkers.

Glycan reductive isotope labeling for quantitative glycomics

Many diseases and disorders are characterized by quantitative and/or qualitative changes in complex carbohydrates. Mass spectrometry methods show promise in monitoring and detecting these important biological changes. Here we report a new glycomics method, termed glycan reductive isotope labeling (GRIL), where free glycans are derivatized by reductive amination with the differentially coded stable isotope tags [ 12C 6]aniline and [ 13C 6]aniline. These dual-labeled aniline-tagged glycans can be recovered by reverse-phase chromatography and can be quantified based on ultraviolet (UV) absorbance and relative ion abundances. Unlike previously reported isotopically coded reagents for glycans, GRIL does not contain deuterium, which can be chromatographically resolved. Our method shows no chromatographic resolution of differentially labeled glycans. Mixtures of differentially tagged glycans can be directly compared and quantified using mass spectrometric techniques. We demonstrate the use of GRIL to determine relative differences in glycan amount and composition. We analyze free glycans and glycans enzymatically or chemically released from a variety of standard glycoproteins, as well as human and mouse serum glycoproteins, using this method. This technique allows linear relative quantitation of glycans over a 10-fold concentration range and can accurately quantify sub-picomole levels of released glycans, providing a needed advancement in the field of glycomics.

Pathogenesis of severe acute respiratory syndrome

Pathogenesis of severe acute respiratory syndrome

Boronic acid lectin affinity chromatography (BLAC). 2. Affinity micropartitioning-mediated comparative glycosylation profiling

As a continuation of our work on boronic acid lectin affinity chromatography (BLAC), in this paper we introduce an automated affinity micropartitioning approach using combined boronic acid and concanavalin A (BLAC/Con A) resin-filled micropipette tips to isolate and enrich human serum glycoproteins. The N-linked oligosaccharides of the partitioned glycoproteins were removed by PNGase F enzyme digestion, followed by 8-aminopyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid labeling. Capillary gel electrophoresis with blue LED-induced fluorescence detection was applied in a multiplexed format for comparative glycan profiling. The efficiency of BLAC affinity micropartitioning was compared with that of the individual lectin and pseudolectin affinity enrichment. Finally, we report on our findings in glycosylation differences in human serum samples from healthy and prostate cancer patients by applying BLAC/Con A micropipette tip-based enrichment and comparative multicapillary gel electrophoresis analysis of the released and labeled glycans.

Simultaneous glycosylation analysis of human serum glycoproteins by high-performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

Changes in the glycosylation of some serum proteins are associated with certain diseases. In this study, we performed simultaneous site-specific glycosylation analysis of abundant serum glycoproteins by LC/Qq-TOF MS of human serum tryptic digest, the albumin of which was depleted. The glycopeptide peaks on the chromatogram were basically assigned by database searching with modified peak-list text files of MS/MS spectra and then based on mass differences of glycan units from characterized glycopeptides. Glycopeptide of IgG, haptoglobin and ceruloplasmin were confirmed by means of a comparison of their retention times and m/ z values with those obtained by LC/MS of commercially available glycoproteins. Mass spectrometric carbohydrate heterogeneity in the assigned glycopeptides was analyzed by an additional LC/MS. We successfully demonstrated site-specific glycosylation of 23 sites in abundant serum glycoproteins.

Changes of Serum Glycoproteins in Lung Cancer Patients

Lung cancer (LC) is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths worldwide and approximately 3 million individuals die from this disease each year. Therefore, detecting LC at its early stages is very important to achieve decreased LC mortality. While gene expression profiling has been successfully used to classify various tumors and assess tumor stages, the gene-based prediction for LC is not yet entirely dependable. In serum, glycosylation is one of the most common post-translational modifications, and glycoproteins play a core role in a diversity of biological processes and pathogenesis. The development of an analytical approach for the study of variations of human serum glycoproteins has been limited by the structural heterogeneity of the post-translational modifications and the complexity of glycomics. Thus, in this report we present a strategy of using Concavanalin A (Con A) as an affinity agent combined with twodimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) and nanoLC ESI-MS/MS to enrich and characterize the N-linked glycoproteins that are the most common glycosylation motifs in serum. By comparison of serum samples between LC patients and the healthy, we found that 8 glycoproteins were significantly up regulated in LC serum and 3 glycoproteins were down regulated. The useful information related to LC was discovered while we investigated changes of glycosylation in LC serum. The results suggested that the combination of proteomic techniques could be used for mining protein biomarkers for LC.

Different affinity of galectins for human serum glycoproteins: Galectin-3 binds many protease inhibitors and acute phase proteins

Here we report the first survey of galectins binding to glycoproteins of human serum. Serum was subjected to affinity chromatography using immobilized galectins, and the bound glycoproteins were analyzed by electrophoresis, Western blotting, and mass spectrometry. Galectins-3, -8, and -9 bound a much broader range of ligands in serum than previously known, galectin-1 bound less, and galectins-2, -4, and -7 bound only traces or no serum ligands. Galectin-3 bound most major glycoproteins, including alpha-2-macroglobulin and acute phase proteins such as haptoglobin. It bound only a selected minor fraction of transferrin, and bound none or little of IgG. Galectins-8 and -9 bound a similar range of glycoproteins as galectin-3, but in lower amounts, and galectin-8 had a relative preference for IgA. Galectin-1 bound mainly a fraction of alpha-2-macroglobulin and only traces of other glycoproteins. The binding of galectin-3 to serum glycoproteins requires affinity for LacNAc, since a mutant (R186S), which has lost this affinity, did not bind any serum glycoproteins. The average affinity of galectin-3 for serum glycoproteins was estimated to correspond to K(d) approximately 1-5 muM by modeling of the affinity chromatography and a fluorescence anisotropy assay. Since galectins are expressed on endothelial cells and other cells exposed to serum components, this report gives new insight into function of galectins and the role of their different fine specificity giving differential binding to the serum glycoproteins.

N-Glycomic Changes in Serum Proteins During Human Aging

N-glycan profiling of the human serum glycoproteins including immunoglobulin fraction on different age groups of healthy persons shows substantial changes with increasing age in three major N-glycan structures. In individuals more than 40-50 years of age, there is an increase in under-galactosylated glycans and a decrease in the core alpha-1,6-fucosylated bi-galactosylated biantennary structure. These three glycan structures are also substantially changed in a Werner syndrome patient, to a level comparable or even more pronounced than those observed in a healthy Italian centenarian population. These data show that the glycosylation machineries in both liver cells and B-cells are affected in a similar way by the aging process despite their highly different nature. The observed changes in the glycan structures are indicative that biosynthetic processes are at the basis of the changes, possibly together with changes in serum clearing of glycan-altered proteins. Our data suggest that measurement of the N-glycan level changes could provide a noninvasive surrogate marker for general health or for age-related disease progression, and for monitoring the improvement of health after therapy.

Identification of putative serum glycoprotein biomarkers for human lung adenocarcinoma by multilectin affinity chromatography and LC‐MS/MS

Glycoproteins in human serum play fundamental roles in many biological processes, and also have clinical value as biomarkers for disease progression and treatment. In this study, we isolated glycoproteins from the sera of three healthy individuals and three lung adenocarcinoma patients using multilectin affinity chromatography. The recovered glycoproteins were subjected to treatment with peptide-N-glycosidase F (PNGase F) and in-gel digestion by trypsin. Tryptic peptides were analyzed by nano-LC coupled to ESI-MS/MS and the MS/MS spectra were processed by Bioworks 3.2 and an in-house bioinformatics tool, ProtAn. Approximately 90% of the proteins identified contained more than one potential glycosylation site. Comparison of the serum glycoproteome of healthy and adenocarcinoma individuals revealed 38 cancer-selective proteins. Among them, 60% have previously been reported as low abundance proteins in human sera. We identified several cancer-selective proteins that have been previously characterized as potential indicators of lung cancer in serum or plasma, including haptoglobin (HP), inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 4 (ITI-H4), complement C3 precursor, and leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein. In addition, plasma kallikrein (KLKB1) and inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor heavy chain 3 (ITI-H3) were identified as being potentially elevated in the lung cancer group, and were validated by Western blot analysis. Furthermore, approximately 18 kDa plasma kallirein protein fragment was detected at high levels in 25 out of 28 adenocarcinoma patients, while one of the eight normal individuals showed moderate positive. The results suggest that KLKB1 represents a potential candidate serum biomarker of lung cancer.

Comparison of planar SDS-PAGE, CGE-on-a-chip, and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for analysis of the enzymatic de-N-glycosylation of antithrombin III and coagulation factor IX with PNGase F

Three different analytical techniques (planar SDS-PAGE, CGE-on-a-chip and MALDI-TOF-MS) applied for determination of the molecular weight of intact and partly and completely de-N-glycosylated human serum glycoproteins (antithrombin III and coagulation factor IX) have been compared. N-Glycans were removed from the protein backbone of both complex glycoproteins using PNGase F, which cleaves all types of asparagine-attached N-glycan provided the oligosaccharide has at least the length of a chitobiose core unit. Two of the applied techniques were based on gel electrophoretic separation in the liquid phase while the third technique was the gas-phase technique mass spectrometry. It was demonstrated that the enzymatic de-N-glycosylation generally worked well (completely or partially) with both glycoproteins (one containing only N-glycans and the second N- and O-glycans). All three methods were suitable for monitoring the de-N-glycosylation progress. While the molecular weights determined with MALDI-TOF-MS were most accurate, both gel electrophoretic methods provided molecular weights that were too high because of the attached glycan structures.

Quantitative Glycomics of Human Whole Serum Glycoproteins Based on the Standardized Protocol for Liberating N-Glycans

Global glycomics of human whole serum glycoproteins appears to be an innovative and comprehensive approach to identify surrogate non-invasive biomarkers for various diseases. Despite the fact that quantitative glycomics is premised on highly efficient and reproducible oligosaccharide liberation from human serum glycoproteins, it should be noted that there is no validated protocol for which deglycosylation efficiency is proven to be quantitative. To establish a standard procedure to evaluate N-glycan release from whole human serum glycoproteins by peptide-N-glycosidase F (PNGase F) treatment, we determined the efficiencies of major N-glycan liberation from serum glycoproteins in the presence of reducing agents, surfactants, protease treatment, or combinations of pretreatments prior to PNGase F digestion. We show that de-N-glycosylation efficiency differed significantly depending on the condition used, indicative of the importance of a standardized protocol for the accumulation and comparison of glycomics data. Maximal de-N-glycosylation was achieved when serum was subjected to reductive alkylation in the presence of 2-hydroxyl-3-sulfopropyl dodecanoate, a surfactant used for solubilizing proteins, or related analogues, followed by tryptic digestion prior to PNGase F treatment. An optimized de-N-glycosylation protocol permitted relative and absolute quantitation of up to 34 major N-glycans present in serum glycoproteins of normal subjects for the first time. Moreover PNGase F-catalyzed de-N-glycosylation of whole serum glycoproteins was characterized kinetically, allowing accurate simulation of PNGase F-catalyzed de-N-glycosylation required for clinical glycomics using human serum samples. The results of the current study may provide a firm basis to identify new diagnostic markers based on serum glycomics analysis.

One‐Pot Solid‐Phase Glycoblotting and Probing by Transoximization for High‐Throughput Glycomics and Glycoproteomics

The development of rapid and efficient methods for high-throughput protein glycomics is of growing importance because the glycoform-focused reverse proteomics/genomics strategy will greatly contribute to the discovery of novel biomarkers closely related to cellular development, differentiation, growth, and aging as well as a variety of diseases such as cancers and viral infection. Recently, we communicated that rapid and efficient purification of carbohydrates can be achieved by employing sugar-specific chemical ligation with aminooxy-functionalized polymers, which we termed "glycoblotting" (see S.-I. Nishimura et al., Angew. Chem. 2005, 117, 93-98; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 91-96). The chemoselective blotting of oligosaccharides present in crude biological materials onto synthetic polymers relies on the unique oxime-bond formation between aminooxy group displayed on the supporting materials and aldehyde/ketone group at the reducing terminal of all oligosaccharides, thus enabling highly selective and rapid oligosaccharide purification. Aiming to improve the detection sensitivity of the released oligosaccharides, we introduce here a novel strategy for one-pot solid-phase glycoblotting and probing by transoximization. We found that oligosaccharides captured by the polymer supports via the oxime bond can be released in the presence of excess O-substituted aminooxy derivatives in a weakly acidic condition. The released oligosaccharides could be recovered as newly formed oxime derivatives of the O-substituted aminooxy compound added, thus demonstrating the simultaneous releasing and probing. In addition, we synthesized a novel aminooxy-functionalized monomer, N-[2-[2-(2-tert-butoxycarbonylaminooxyacetylamino-ethoxy)ethoxy]ethyl]-2-methacrylamide, which allows for the large-scale preparation of a versatile polymer characterized by its high stability, high blotting capacity, and easy use. The one-pot protocol allowed to profile 23 kinds of N-glycan chains of human serum glycoproteins. This concept was further applied for the glycopeptides analysis in a crude mixture followed by galactose oxidase treatment to generate free aldehyde group at the non-reducing terminal of oligosaccharide moiety of glycopeptides. Our technique may be implemented in existing biochemistry and molecular diagnostics laboratories because enriched oligosaccharides and glycopeptides by solid-phase transoximization with high-sensitive labeling reagents are widely applicable in a variety of common analytical methods using two-dimensional HPLC, LC/MS, and capillary electrophoresis as well as modern mass spectrometry.

Semiautomated High-Sensitivity Profiling of Human Blood Serum Glycoproteins through Lectin Preconcentration and Multidimensional Chromatography/Tandem Mass Spectrometry

We describe an effective analytical approach to identify trace glycoproteins in a small volume of human serum. The system is based on automatable affinity enrichment through silica-based lectin microcolumns and a further separation of the retained glycoproteins on a reversed-phase liquid chromatography with superficially porous packing, operating at high temperature. The fractionated sample is further directed into a 96-well plate for trypsinization and LC-MS/MS analysis. Using a major-component depleted blood serum (16 microg total protein), we were able to identify 271 glycoproteins through this analytical system.

Concanavalin A-captured Glycoproteins in Healthy Human Urine

Both the urinary proteome and its glycoproteome can reflect human health status, and more directly, functions of kidney and urinary tracts. Because the high abundance protein albumin is not N-glycosylated, the urine N-glycoprotein enrichment procedure could deplete it, and urine proteome could thus provide a more detailed protein profile in addition to glycosylation information especially when albuminuria occurs in some kidney diseases. In terms of describing the details of urinary proteins, the urine glycoproteome is even a better choice than the proteome itself. Pooled urine samples from healthy volunteers were collected and acetone-precipitated for proteins. N-Linked glycoproteins enriched with concanavalin A affinity purification were separated and analyzed by SDS-PAGE-reverse phase LC/MS/MS or two-dimensional LC/MS/MS. A total of 225 urinary proteins were identified based on two-hit criteria with reliability over 97% for each peptide. Among these proteins, 94 were identified in previous urine proteome works, 150 were annotated as glycoproteins in Swiss-Prot, and 43 were predicted as glycoproteins by NetNGlyc 1.0. A number of known biomarkers and disease-related glycoproteins were identified. Because changes in protein quantity or the glycosylation status can lead to changes in the concanavalin A-captured glycoprotein profile, specific urine glycoproteome patterns might be observed for specific pathological conditions as multiplex urinary biomarkers. Knowledge of the urine glycoproteome is important in understanding kidney and body function.

Differential staining of Western blots of human secreted glycoproteins from serum, milk, saliva, and seminal fluid using lectins displaying diverse sugar specifities

Human milk, serum, saliva, and seminal fluid glycoproteins (gps) nourish and protect newborn and adult tissues. Their saccharides, which resemble cell membrane components, may block pathogen adhesion and infection. In the present study, they were examined by a battery of lectins from plants, animals, and bacteria, using hemagglutination inhibition and Western blot analyses. The lectins included galactophilic ones from Aplysia gonad, Erythrina corallodendron, Maclura pomifera (MPL), peanut, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA-IL); fucose-binding lectins from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA-IIL), Ralstonia solanacearum (RSL), and Ulex europaeus (UEA-I), and mannose/glucose-binding Con A. The results demonstrated the chosen lectin efficiency for differential analysis of human secreted gps as compared to CBB staining. They unveiled the diversity of these body fluid gp glycans (those of the milk and seminal fluid being highest): the milk gps interacted most strongly with PA-IIL, followed by RSL; the saliva gps with RSL, followed by PA-IIL and MPL; the serum gps with Con A and MPL, followed by PA-IIL and RSL, and the seminal plasma gps with RSL and MPL, followed by UEA-I and PA-IIL. The potential usage of these lectins as probes for scientific, industrial, and medical purposes, and for quality control of the desired gps is clearly indicated.

A study of glycoproteins in human serum and plasma reference standards (HUPO) using multilectin affinity chromatography coupled with RPLC‐MS/MS

The glycoproteome is a major subproteome present in human plasma. In this study, we isolated and characterized approximately 150 glycoproteins from the human plasma and serum samples provided by HUPO using a multilectin affinity column. The corresponding tryptic digest was separated by RP-HPLC coupled to an IT mass spectrometer (3-D LCQ). Also in this study, a new system, namely an Ettan MDLC system coupled to a linear ITLTQ, was compared with the previous LCQ platform and gave a greater number of protein identifications, as well as better quality. When we compared the composition of the glycoproteomes for the plasma and serum samples there was a close correlation between the samples, except for the absence of fibrinogen from the identified-protein list in the latter sample, which was presumably as a result of the clotting process. In addition, the analysis of the samples from three ethnic specimens, Caucasian American, Asian American, and African American, were very similar but showed a higher angiotensinogen plasma level and a lower histidine-rich glycoprotein level in Caucasian American samples, and a lower vitronectin level in African American blood samples.

Use of Multidimensional Lectin Affinity Chromatography in Differential Glycoproteomics

This paper reports studies comparing the relative degree of sialylation among human serum glycoproteins carrying complex biantennary N-linked, hybrid, and high-mannose oligosaccharides. Comparisons were made by coupling lectin affinity selection with stable isotope coding of peptides from tryptic digests of serum. After proteolysis, samples were split and differentially acetylated with stable isotope coding agents according to either origin or the separation method by which they would be fractionated. A lectin column prepared from Sambucus nigra agglutinin (SNA) was used to select and compare the concentration of sialic acid containing glycopeptides. The relative standard deviation in quantification using this method was 4%. Using this method the concentration of sialic acid containing glycoproteins from a normal individual were compared to those in a pooled serum sample from a large number of normal individuals. It was found that sialylation varied less than 2-fold in all but four or five glycoproteins. Further studies were done on the degree of sialylation within glycoproteins. Samples labeled with the light isoform of the coding agent were applied to a set of serial lectin columns consisting of a concanavalin A (Con A) column coupled to an SNA column for selecting sialic acid appended to glycopeptides with complex biantennary N-linked, hybrid, and high-mannose glycans. In contrast, samples labeled with the heavy isoform of the coding agent were applied to a Con A lectin column alone to select glycopeptides containing complex biantennary N-linked, hybrid, and high-mannose glycans, without regard to sialylation. Glycopeptides thus selected were mixed, deglycosylated by PNGase F, and fractionated by reversed-phase chromatography (RPC). The RPC fractions were then analyzed by ESI-MS. The relative standard deviation of the method was 4%. All glycopeptides identified contained sialic acid except one. Peptides in which the relative abundance of isotopic isoforms was equal were considered to indicate that the protein parent was fully sialylated at that specific glycosylation site.

Glycan arrays lead to the discovery of autoimmunogenic activity of SARS-CoV.

Using carbohydrate microarrays, we characterized the carbohydrate binding activity of SARS-CoV neutralizing antibodies elicited by an inactivated SARS-CoV vaccine. In these antibodies, we detected undesired autoantibody reactivity specific for the carbohydrate moieties of an abundant human serum glycoprotein asialo-orosomucoid (ASOR). This observation provides important clues for the selection of specific immunologic probes to examine whether SARS-CoV expresses antigenic structures that mimic the host glycan. We found that lectin PHA-L (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), which is specific for a defined complex carbohydrate of ASOR, stained the SARS-CoV-infected cells specifically and intensively. Taken together, we present immunologic evidence that a carbohydrate structure of SARS-CoV shares antigenic similarity with host glycan complex carbohydrates. The experimental approaches we applied in this study are likely applicable for the identification of immunologic targets of other viral pathogens.