Faculty of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710069, P.R. China.
Int J Mol Med. 2018 Jan;41(1):293-301. doi: 10.3892/ijmm.2017.3240. Epub 2017 Nov 7.
The understanding of adipose tissue development is crucial for the treatment of obesity-related diseases. Adipogenesis has been extensively investigated at the gene and protein levels in recent years. However, the alterations in protein glycosylation during this process remains unknown, particularly that of parthenogenetic embryonic stem cells (pESCs), a type of ESCs with low immunogenicity and no ethical concerns regarding their use. Protein glycosylation markedly affects cell growth and development, cell-to-cell communication, tumour growth and metastasis. In the present study, the adipogenic potentials of J1 ESCs and pESCs were first compared and the results demonstrated that pESCs had lower adipogenic potential compared with J1 ESCs. Lectin microarray was then used to screen the alteration of protein glycosylation during adipogenesis. The results revealed that protein modification of GlcNAc and α-1-2-fucosylation increased, whereas α-1-6‑fucosylation, α-2-6-sialylation and α-1-6-mannosylation decreased in J1 ESCs and pESCs during this process. In addition, α-1-3-mannosylation decreased only in pESCs. Lectin histochemistry and quantitative polymerase chain reaction of glycosyltransferase confirmed the results obtained by lectin microarray. Therefore, protein glycosylation of ESCs was significantly altered during adipogenesis, indicating that protein glycosylation analysis is not only helpful for studying the mechanism of adipogenesis, but may also be used as a marker to monitor adipogenic development.
了解脂肪组织的发育对于治疗肥胖相关疾病至关重要。近年来，人们在基因和蛋白质水平上对脂肪生成进行了广泛的研究。然而，在此过程中蛋白质糖基化的变化仍然未知，特别是对于具有低免疫原性且在使用方面不存在伦理问题的孤雌胚胎干细胞 (pESC) 来说更是如此。蛋白质糖基化显著影响细胞的生长和发育、细胞间的通讯、肿瘤的生长和转移。在本研究中，首先比较了 J1 胚胎干细胞和 pESC 的脂肪生成潜能，结果表明 pESC 的脂肪生成潜能低于 J1 胚胎干细胞。然后使用凝集素微阵列筛选脂肪生成过程中蛋白质糖基化的变化。结果表明，在这个过程中，GlcNAc 和 α-1-2-岩藻糖基化的蛋白质修饰增加，而 α-1-6-岩藻糖基化、α-2-6-唾液酸化和 α-1-6-甘露糖基化在 J1 胚胎干细胞和 pESC 中减少。此外，α-1-3-甘露糖基化仅在 pESC 中减少。凝集素组织化学和糖基转移酶的定量聚合酶链反应证实了凝集素微阵列的结果。因此，脂肪生成过程中胚胎干细胞的蛋白质糖基化发生了显著改变，表明蛋白质糖基化分析不仅有助于研究脂肪生成的机制，而且可能作为监测脂肪生成发育的标志物。
