Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

The metastasis of hematogenous cancer cells is associated with abnormal glycosylation such as sialyllewis antigens. Although the hepatitis B virus X protein (HBx) plays important role in liver disease, the precise function of HBxonaberrant glycosylation for metastasis remains unclear. The human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues, HBx transgenic mice and HBx- transfected cells were used to check the correlation of expressions between HBx and Sialyllewis antigen for cancer metastasis. To investigate whether expression levels of glycosyltransferases induced in HBx-transfected cells are specifically associated with sialyllewis A (SLA) synthesis, which enhances metastasis by interaction of liver cancer cells with endothelial cells, ShRNA and siRNAs targeting specific glycosyltransferases were used. HBx expression in liver cancer region of HCC is associated with the specific synthesis of SLA. Furthermore, the SLA was specifically induced both in liver tissues from HBx-transgenic mice and in in vitro HBx-transfected cells. HBx increased transcription levels and activities of α 2-3 sialyltransferases (ST3Gal III), α 1-3/4 fucosyltransferasesIII and VII (FUT III and VII) genes, which were specific for SLA synthesis, allowing dramatic cell-cell adhesion for metastatic potential. Interestingly, HBx specifically induced expression of N-acetylglucosamine- α 1-3 galactosyltransferase V (β1-3GalT 5) gene associated with the initial synthesis of sialyllewis A, but not β1-4GalT I. The β1- 3GalT 5 shRNA suppressed SLA expression by HBx, blocking the adhesion of HBx-transfected cells to the endothelial cells. Moreover, β1-3GalT 5 silencing suppressed lung metastasis of HBx-transfected cells in in vivo lung metastasis system. HBx targets the specific glycosyltransferases for the SLA synthesis and this process regulates hematogenous cancer cell adhesion to endothelial cells for cancer metastasis.

Biography

Cheorl-Ho Kim has completed his PhD at the age of 28 years from The University of Tokyo and was positioned as a senior scientist from Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology. He is a professor of Molecular Glycobiology, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea,aleading organization of Korea, which is cooperated with the SamSung Group. He has published more than 320 papers in reputed journals and serving as an editorial board member, executive editor and editor-in chief of the international journals.His work was contributed to the mechanisms of glycan-mediated Hepatis B viral oncogenesis and invasion, sialoglycan-mediated leukemic differentiation and vascular biology. He is being serves as an Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Glycobiology, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Microbial and Biochemical Technology, Executive Editor of Journal of Glycomics and Lipidomics, Editor-in-Chief of Open Glycoscience, Editor-in-Chief of Open Complementary Medicine Journal and Editor of eCAM.