Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 22, 2026
Bioinformatics Resources for the Study of Glycan-Mediated Protein Interactions
Published on: January 20, 2022
Analysis of Urinary Prostate-Specific Antigen Glycoforms in Samples of Prostate Cancer and Benign Prostate
Chun-Jen Hsiao1, Tzong-Shin Tzai2, Chein-Hung Chen3
1Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan; Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei 112, Taiwan.
Abstract:
Glycans of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in prostate cancer were found to be different from that in benign disease. It is difficult to analyze heterogeneous PSA glycoforms in each individual specimen because of low protein abundance and the limitation of detection sensitivity. We developed a method for prostate cancer diagnosis based on PSA glycoforms. Specific glycoforms were screened in each clinical sample based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry with ion accumulation. To look for potential biomarkers, normalized abundance of each glycoform in benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and in prostate cancer was evaluated. The PSA glycoform, Hex5HexNAc4NeuAc1dHex1, and monosialylated, sialylated, and unfucosylated glycoforms differed significantly between the prostate cancer and BPH samples. The detection sensitivity (87.5%) and specificity (60%) for prostate cancer identification are higher than those of the serum PSA marker. As low as 100 amol PSA could be detected with the ion accumulation method which has not been reported before. The improved detection specificity can help reduce unnecessary examinations.
