Shiga toxin receptor Gb3Cer/CD77: tumor-association and promising therapeutic target in pancreas and colon cancer.

Background: Despite progress in adjuvant chemotherapy in the recent decades, pancreatic and colon cancers remain common causes of death worldwide. Bacterial toxins, which specifically bind to cell surface-exposed glycosphingolipids, are a potential novel therapy. We determined the expression of globotriaosylceramide (Gb3Cer/CD77), the Shiga toxin receptor, in human pancreatic and colon adenocarcinomas.

Direct coupling of high-performance thin-layer chromatography with UV spectroscopy and IR-MALDI orthogonal TOF MS for the analysis of cyanobacterial toxins.

Cyanobacteria are pathogenic prokaryotes and known for producing a high variety of cyclic hepatotoxic peptides in fresh and brackish water. Prominent members of these toxins are microcystin LR (MC LR) and nodularin (Nod), which are under suspicion to cause cancer. Various analytical methods have been reported for the detection of these cyclopeptides, and these are mainly based on liquid chromatography combined with mass spectrometric techniques.

Effect of gas pressure and gas type on the fragmentation of peptide and oligosaccharide ions generated in an elevated pressure UV/IR-MALDI ion source coupled to an orthogonal time-of-flight mass spectrometer.

Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) allows for the mass spectrometric (MS) analysis of thermally labile, non-volatile biomolecules. However, some residual analyte fragmentation typically accompanies the phase transition from the condensed to the gas phase and following plume expansion, even under optimized conditions. In-source decay (ISD) and post-source decay (PSD) MALDI MS are two techniques that make use of these phenomena and that can provide useful structural information by producing characteristic fragment ions of the analyte compounds.

Tumor-associated CD75s- and iso-CD75s-gangliosides are potential targets for adjuvant therapy in pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma confers one of the highest mortality rates in malignant human tumors with very poor prognosis. Because as yet no treatments are available that produce a substantial survival benefit for this fatal neoplasia, new therapeutic concepts are urgently required to support cancer standard treatment. In search of tumor-associated gangliosides with therapeutic background, we probed a random collection of cancerous and adjacent normal postoperative tissue samples from 38 patients for the expression of CD75s- and iso-CD75s-gangliosides.

Matching IR-MALDI-o-TOF mass spectrometry with the TLC overlay binding assay and its clinical application for tracing tumor-associated glycosphingolipids in hepatocellular and pancreatic cancer.

Glycosphingolipids (GSLs), composed of a hydrophilic carbohydrate chain and a lipophilic ceramide anchor, play pivotal roles in countless biological processes, including the development of cancer. As part of the investigation of the vertebrate glycome, GSL analysis is undergoing rapid expansion owing to the application of modern mass spectrometry. Here we introduce direct coupling of IR-MALDI-o-TOF mass spectrometry with the TLC overlay binding assay for the structural characterization of GSLs.