High-throughput lectin magnetic bead array-coupled tandem mass spectrometry for glycoprotein biomarker discovery

Alterations in protein glycosylation occur during development and progression of many diseases, hence glycomics and glycoproteomics have emerged as important tools in glycobiomarker discovery. High-throughput glycan profiling can now be achieved with the recent developments in MS-based techniques. To enable identification and rapid monitoring of glycosylation changes in serum proteins, we developed a semi-automated high-throughput glycoprotein biomarker discovery platform termed lectin magnetic bead array-coupled tandem mass spectrometry (LeMBA-MS) which includes (i) effective single-step serum glycoprotein isolation using a panel of 20 individual lectin-coated magnetic beads in microplate format, (ii) on-bead trypsin digestion, and (iii) nanoLC-MS/MS with lectin exclusion list. With use of appropriate sequence databases, LeMBA-MS can detect glycosylation changes regardless of the species. By spiking known amounts of titrated ovalbumin to a serum sample, we report nanomolar sensitivity, and linearity of response of LeMBA-MS using concanavalin A-coupled beads. Neuraminidase treatment led to reduction of binding to sialic acid-binding lectins. Interestingly, we found that desialylation caused increased binding of haptoglobin and hemopexin to mannose-specific lectins, pointing to the importance of identifying a signature of lectin-binding. High-throughput LeMBA-MS to generate glycosylation signatures will facilitate glycobiomarker discovery. LeMBA can be coupled to down-stream detection platforms for validation, making it a truly versatile platform.