Kan DING
Glycochemistry & Glycobiology Lab,
Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
555 Zu Chong Zhi Road Pudong, Shanghai 201203, China
Glycans attached on glycoprotein and proteoglycan as receptors on cell membrane participate in cell signaling involved in molecular events related in disease development. Glycan mimetics from plant and fungus may work as a probe to understand angiogenesis implicated in cancer or as drug candidate to interfere cancer cells growth.
We find that 1,2-linked glycan induces FGF2 expression and promotes angiogenesis. 1,3-linked glycan may bind to dectin-1 and trigger immune system to inhibit tumor cells growth. 1,4-linked glycan interacts to BMP2 and its receptors to impair tumor angiogenesis. Some of them may target multiple angiogenesis factors such as EGF, VEGF, BMP2, BMP4, galectin-3 to attenuate angiogenesis and further impede tumor growth in vivo. The structure of glycan is the important factor that may influence the binding affinity. However, the Kd value of such binding is not as strong as small molecule to protein. This might be one of the reasons that glycan are not very toxic as that of some of small molecules. This suggests that glycans from herbal medicine might be a good candidate for new drug development for tumor therapy. |
