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Overexpression of GalNAc-transferase GalNAc-T3 promotes pancreatic cancer cell growth

Oncogene volume 30, pages 4843–4854 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

O-linked glycans of secreted and membrane-bound proteins have an important role in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer by modulating immune responses, inflammation and tumorigenesis. A critical aspect of O-glycosylation, the position at which proteins are glycosylated with N-acetyl-galactosamine on serine and threonine residues, is regulated by the substrate specificity of UDP-GalNAc:polypeptide N-acetylgalactosaminyl-transferases (GalNAc-Ts). Thus, GalNAc-Ts regulate the first committed step in O-glycosylated protein biosynthesis, determine sites of O-glycosylation on proteins and are important for understanding normal and carcinoma-associated O-glycosylation. We have found that one of these enzymes, GalNAc-T3, is overexpressed in human pancreatic cancer tissues and suppression of GalNAc-T3 significantly attenuates the growth of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. In addition, suppression of GalNAc-T3 induces apoptosis of pancreatic cancer cells. Our results indicate that GalNAc-T3 is likely involved in pancreatic carcinogenesis. Modification of cellular glycosylation occurs in nearly all types of cancer as a result of alterations in the expression levels of glycosyltransferases. We report guanine the nucleotide-binding protein, α-transducing activity polypeptide-1 (GNAT1) as a possible substrate protein of GalNAc-T3. GalNAc-T3 is associated with O-glycosylation of GNAT1 and affects the subcellular distribution of GNAT1. Knocking down endogenous GNAT1 significantly suppresses the growth/survival of PDAC cells. Our results imply that GalNAc-T3 contributes to the function of O-glycosylated proteins and thereby affects the growth and survival of pancreatic cancer cells. Thus, substrate proteins of GalNAc-T3 should serve as important therapeutic targets for pancreatic cancers.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Michel Ouellette for providing the HPNE cells and Tamotsu Takeuchi for supporting pathological experiments and helpful discussion. We also thank Janice Taylor and James Talaska for excellent technical assistance. This work was funded by the NIH with grants to MAH (U01CA111294; R01CA057362).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and Department of Pathology and Microbiology, Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, USA

    K Taniuchi & M A Hollingsworth

  2. Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Kochi University Medical School, Kochi, Japan

    K Taniuchi, A Tanouchi & T Saibara

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    R L Cerny

  4. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Occupational and Environmental Health School of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan

    K Kohno

  5. Department of Biochemistry, Kochi University Medical School, Kochi, Japan

    N Kotani & K Honke

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  1. K Taniuchi
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Correspondence to K Taniuchi.

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Taniuchi, K., Cerny, R., Tanouchi, A. et al. Overexpression of GalNAc-transferase GalNAc-T3 promotes pancreatic cancer cell growth. Oncogene 30, 4843–4854 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2011.194

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