Research Center for Stem Cell Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba Central 4, Tsukuba, Japan.
PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e56581. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056581. Epub 2013 Feb 14.
Cell surface glycans show dynamic changes during cell differentiation. Several glycans are useful biomarkers of tumors, stem cells, and embryogenesis. Glycomic studies have been performed using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, which are powerful tools for glycan structural analysis but are difficult to use for small sample sizes. Recently, a lectin microarray system was developed for profiling cell surface glycome changes to terminal carbohydrate chains and branch types, using sample sizes of a few micrograms. In this study, we used the lectin microarray system for the first time to investigate stage-specific glycomes in Xenopus laevis embryos. Unsupervised cluster analysis of lectin microarray data indicated that glycan profiles changed sequentially during development. Nine lectin probes showed significantly different signals between early and the late-stage embryos: 4 showed higher signals in the early stages, and 5 exhibited higher signals in the late stages. The gene expression profiles of relevant glycosyltransferase genes support the lectin microarray data. Therefore, we have shown that lectin microarray is an effective tool for high-throughput glycan analysis in Xenopus embryogenesis, allowing glycan profiling of early embryos and small biopsy specimens.
细胞表面糖链在细胞分化过程中呈现动态变化。有几种糖链是肿瘤、干细胞和胚胎发生的有用生物标志物。糖组学研究使用液相色谱和质谱进行，这些方法是糖链结构分析的有力工具，但难以用于小样本量。最近，开发了一种凝集素微阵列系统，用于分析细胞表面糖组末端碳水化合物链和支链类型的变化，使用的样本量为几微克。在这项研究中，我们首次使用凝集素微阵列系统研究非洲爪蟾胚胎的阶段特异性糖组。凝集素微阵列数据的无监督聚类分析表明，糖组图谱在发育过程中依次发生变化。9 种凝集素探针在早期和晚期胚胎之间显示出明显不同的信号：4 种在早期显示出更高的信号，5 种在晚期显示出更高的信号。相关糖基转移酶基因的表达谱支持凝集素微阵列数据。因此，我们已经表明，凝集素微阵列是非洲爪蟾胚胎发生中高通量糖分析的有效工具，允许对早期胚胎和小活检标本进行糖谱分析。
