A new histobiochemical method to analyze sialylation on cell-surface glycoproteins of head and neck squamous-cell carcinomas

Oncogenic transformation is often accompanied by alterations of glycosylation on a tumor cell's surface, which may contribute to uncontrolled cell growth. The sialoglycans and degree of sialylation on the cell surface are of increasing interest because of their possible role in metastasis and tissue invasion. Since primary tumors and metastases may differ in the degree of sialylation, we examined the expression of sialic acid as a terminal constituent of lactosaminyl glycans on the cell surfaces of 30 cervical lymph-node metastases and 30 squamous-cell carcinomas of the oropharynx and oral cavity. Cell-surface sialylation was determined by a new histobiochemical assay on cryostat sections and was based on the enzymatic introduction of a fluorescence-labelled sialic acid into lactosaminyl type (Gal-beta 1-4 GlcNAc) oligosaccharide chains of cell-surface-expressed glycoproteins. To this end, tissues were incubated in the presence of 5-acetamido-9-deoxy-9-fluoresceinyl-thioureido neuraminic acid (CMP-9-fluoresceinyl-NeuAc) and alpha-2,6-sialyltransferase. In order to compare the degree of sialylation with the potential total amount of sialylation sites, pretreatment with sialidase for desialylation was required. We observed a significantly higher amount of lactosaminyl-type binding sites for sialic acid on metastases compared to the primary tumors (P = 0.001), indicating a lower degree of sialylation in metastases. In primary tumors no correlation was seen between the amount of binding sites and tumor localization, TNM stage or histologic grading. Pretreatment of specimens with sialidase demonstrated a significant degree of sialylation on both primary tumors and lymph-node metastases, but no difference between primary tumors and metastases. When tumor stroma of primary tumors and metastases was compared, tumor cells showed a higher degree of free binding sites for sialic acid, but a low degree of sialylation. Our results suggest that differences in the degree of sialylation of glycoconjugates on a tumor cell's surface may play an important role in the process of cell metastasis. Our histobiochemical method turned out to be very reliable, effective and readily performed.