Medicines (Jun 2023)

Bittersweet Sugars: How Unusual Glycan Structures May Connect Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition and Multidrug Resistance in Cancer

  • Leonardo Marques da Fonseca,
  • Israel Diniz-Lima,
  • Marcos André Rodrigues da Costa Santos,
  • Tatiany Nunes Franklim,
  • Kelli Monteiro da Costa,
  • Ariely Costa dos Santos,
  • Alexandre Morrot,
  • Debora Decote-Ricardo,
  • Raphael do Carmo Valente,
  • Celio Geraldo Freire-de-Lima,
  • Jhenifer Santos dos Reis,
  • Leonardo Freire-de-Lima

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/medicines10060036
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 6
p. 36

Abstract

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Cancer cells are characterized by metabolic reprogramming, which enables their survival in of-ten inhospitable conditions. A very well-documented example that has gained attraction in re-cent years and is already considered a hallmark of transformed cells is the reprogramming of carbohydrate metabolism. Such a feature, in association with the differential expression of en-zymes involved in the biosynthesis of glycoconjugates, generically known as glycosyltransfer-ases, contributes to the expression of structurally atypical glycans when compared to those ex-pressed in healthy tissues. The latest studies have demonstrated that glycophenotypic alterations are capable of modulating multifactorial events essential for the development and/or progres-sion of the disease. Herein, we will address the importance of glycobiology in modern medi-cine, focusing on the ability of unusual/truncated O-linked glycans to modulate two complex and essential phenomena for cancer progression: the acquisition of the multidrug resistance (MDR) phenotype and the activation of molecular pathways associated with the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) process, an event deeply linked with cancer metastasis.

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