Figure 3.

Zooming in on the sugar coating of cancer cells has provided the identification of glycoproteins holding potential for targeted therapies

SLe^A, a terminal glycan epitope of glycolipids and membrane glycoproteins, is commonly overexpressed in gastric tumors and is an important ligand of E-selectin, playing a key role on E-selectin-mediated disease dissemination. Exploring the SLe^A proteome allows to increase specificity and overcome some expression associated with non-malignant conditions. NCL-SLe^A, a well-known mislocalized protein in cancer, has emerged as a top-ranked targetable glycoprotein at cell membrane in gastric cancer and a potential E-selectin ligand. Moreover, only the protein glycoform was associated with decreased overall survival, showing the added value of glycosylation for biomarker discovery. NCL, nucleolin; NCL-SLe^A, nucleolin-sialyl-Lewis A glycoform; NCLmem, nucleolin expressed at the cell membrane.