title: A Bitter Sweet Symphony: Immune Responses to Altered O-glycan Epitopes in Cancer.
abstract: The appearance of aberrant glycans on the tumor cell surface is one of the emerging hallmarks of cancer. Glycosylation is an important post-translation modification of proteins and lipids and is strongly affected by oncogenesis. Tumor-associated glycans have been extensively characterized regarding their composition and tumor-type specific expression patterns. Nevertheless whether and how tumor-associated glycans contribute to the observed immunomodulatory actions by tumors has not been extensively studied. Here, we provide a detailed overview of the current knowledge on how tumor-associated O-glycans affect the anti-tumor immune response, thereby focusing on truncated O-glycans present on epithelial tumors and mucins. These tumor-associated O-glycans and mucins bind a variety of lectin receptors on immune cells to facilitate the subsequently induction of tolerogenic immune responses. We, therefore, postulate that tumor-associated glycans not only support tumor growth, but also actively contribute to immune evasion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, 1081 HZ, The Netherlands. l.cornelissen@vumc.nl.
authors.forename: Lenneke A M
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Cornelissen
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, 1081 HZ, The Netherlands. s.vanvliet@vumc.nl.
authors.forename: Sandra J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Van Vliet
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D009077:Mucins / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D011134:Polysaccharides / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D000939:Epitopes; D009077:Mucins; D011134:Polysaccharides; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic
keywords: C-type lectin; O-glycosylation; Siglec; cancer; immunity