title: High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of glycoamines in serum.
abstract: This report describes the development of an HPLC-UV method for studies of glycoamines and glycoamine-like compounds in normal human serum and osteosarcoma patients serum as potential biological markers of cancer. The glycoamines, a newly recognized class of endogenous, low-molecular-mass biopolymers, are conjugates of amino acids and sugar units, containing 5 to 29 amino acid and 1 to 17 sugar units. After ultrafiltration of serum samples, reversed-phase HPLC separation with diode-array detection was used to obtain standard profiles of serum ultrafiltrates below M(r) 10,000 in healthy subjects. These highly reproducible profiles utilized two-dimensional peak identification and were used to develop a statistical profile of the major glycoamine peaks in normal serum. This newly developed analytical method was subsequently used to address a key question: whether or not there is a single tumor-specific glycoamine or a family of tumor-specific glycoamines in cancer patient serum. Preliminary results suggest that this method can separate and detect glycoamines and glycoamine-like compounds in various types of cancer patients serum with a high degree of reproducibility on the basis of comparative two-dimensional identification of natural compounds and a panel of synthetic glycoamine analogs. Moreover, the method is useful for following the relative changes in the amount of a given glycoamine over an extended clinical time course. Initial results suggest that a glycoamine or glycoamine-like compound, GA-4.63, may have clinical utility in human osteosarcoma studies.
authors.affiliation: BioSciences & Technology International, Inc., Columbia, MO 65202.
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Gehrke
authors.forename: W C
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Holsbeke
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Glinsky
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Zumwalt
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Gehrke
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D005944:Glucosamine / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000097:blood; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000097:blood; D012016:Reference Values; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; D014462:Ultrafiltration
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D005944:Glucosamine