Glycopathology Characterization of an N-Glycan Biomarker Panel for Pancreatic Cancer Tissues Using MALDI Imaging Mass Spectrometry and Other Methods

摘要

Despite a well-known association of changes in cell surface glycosylation with tumor progression and metastasis, there has been limited two-dimensional mapping and localization of glycan species within a tumor tissue. To directly address this, a recently developed MALDI imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS) workflow that allows the visualization and distribution of enzymatically released N-glycans directly on tissues was applied to pancreatic cancer tissues and tissue microarray (TMA) cores. For comparison, the same tissues were immunostained with the known pancreatic cancer carbohydrate antigen biomarker, CA19-9. The detected N-glycans, either as individual glycan species or combined panels, could distinguish between pancreatic tumor and adjacent non-tumor sections. Correlating N-glycan distribution with CA19-9 staining and/or the carrier glycoprotein has the potential to identify new biomarkers.