Lung cancer is the most frequent
cancer and the leading cause of
cancer around the world. As one of the major types of
lung cancer, lung
squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) is closely associated with smoking and shows poor sensitivity to
therapy and prognosis. Although alteration of glycopatterns are reliable indicators of
cancer, little is known about the alterations of protein glycosylation related to LUSC. In this study, we compared the differential expression levels of glycopatterns in seven pairs of LUSC tissues and normal pericarcinomatous tissues (PCTs) using
lectin microarrays. Fluorescence-based
lectin histochemistry and
lectin blotting were utilized to validate and assess the expression and distribution of certain
glycans in LUSC tissues and PCTs. And we further analyzed their total N-linked
glycans using MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS to provide more information about the aberrant glycopatterns. The results showed that the expression level of the core fucosylation recognized by Pisum sativum
agglutinin (PSA) and
Lens culinaris agglutinin (LCA) was significantly increased in LUSC tissues compared with PCTs. There were 10 and 15 fucosylated N-linked
glycans that were detected in PCTs and LUSC tissues respectively, 10 fucosylated N-
glycans were common, while five fucosylated N-
glycans were unique to LUSC tissues. And the abundance of the fucosylated N-
glycans was increased from 40.9% (PCTs) to 48.3% (LUSC). These finding is helpful to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the
lung diseases and develop new treatment strategies.