Frontiers in Oncology (Mar 2022)

A Fucosylated Glycopeptide as a Candidate Biomarker for Early Diagnosis of NASH Hepatocellular Carcinoma Using a Stepped HCD Method and PRM Evaluation

  • Yu Lin,
  • Jie Zhang,
  • Ana Arroyo,
  • Amit G. Singal,
  • Neehar D. Parikh,
  • David M. Lubman

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2022.818001
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12

Abstract

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Aberrant specific N-glycosylation, especially the increase in fucosylation on specific peptide sites of serum proteins have been investigated as potential markers for diagnosis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-related HCC. We have combined a workflow involving broad scale marker discovery in serum followed by targeted marker evaluation of these fucosylated glycopeptides. This workflow involved an LC-Stepped HCD-DDA-MS/MS method coupled with offline peptide fractionation for large-scale identification of N-glycopeptides directly from pooled serum samples (each n=10) as well as differential determination of N-glycosylation changes between disease states. We then evaluated the fucosylation level of the glycoprotein ceruloplasmin among 62 patient samples (35 cirrhosis, 27 early-stage NASH HCC) by LC-Stepped HCD-PRM-MS/MS to quantitatively analyze 18 targeted glycopeptides. Of these targets, we found the ratio of fucosylation of a tri-antennary glycopeptide from site N762, involving N762_ HexNAc(5)Hex(6)Fuc(2)NeuAc(3) (P=0.0486), increased significantly from cirrhosis to early HCC. This fucosylation ratio of a tri-antennary glycopeptide in CERU could be a potential biomarker for further validation in a larger sample set and could be a promising candidate for early detection of NASH HCC.

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