cells Review A Systematic Review on the Implications of O-linked Glycan Branching and Truncating Enzymes on Cancer Progression and Metastasis 1, 1, 1 1,2,3, Rohitesh Gupta y, Frank Leon y, Sanchita Rauth , Surinder K. Batra * and Moorthy P. Ponnusamy 1,2,* 1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 68105, USA;
[email protected] (R.G.);
[email protected] (F.L.);
[email protected] (S.R.) 2 Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE 681980-5900, USA 3 Department of Pathology and Microbiology, UNMC, Omaha, NE 68198-5900, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected] (S.K.B.);
[email protected] (M.P.P.); Tel.: +402-559-5455 (S.K.B.); +402-559-1170 (M.P.P.); Fax: +402-559-6650 (S.K.B. & M.P.P.) Equal contribution. y Received: 21 January 2020; Accepted: 12 February 2020; Published: 14 February 2020 Abstract: Glycosylation is the most commonly occurring post-translational modifications, and is believed to modify over 50% of all proteins. The process of glycan modification is directed by different glycosyltransferases, depending on the cell in which it is expressed. These small carbohydrate molecules consist of multiple glycan families that facilitate cell–cell interactions, protein interactions, and downstream signaling. An alteration of several types of O-glycan core structures have been implicated in multiple cancers, largely due to differential glycosyltransferase expression or activity. Consequently, aberrant O-linked glycosylation has been extensively demonstrated to affect biological function and protein integrity that directly result in cancer growth and progression of several diseases.