Studies on the role of goat heart galectin-1 as a tool for detecting post-malignant changes in glycosylation pattern

Abstract EN

Galectins are mammalian lectins established to play a crucial role in the progression of various cancer types by the virtue of their differential expression in normal and cancerous cells.

In the present study, goat heart galectin-1 (GHG-1) was purified and investigated for its potential role in the detection of post-malignant changes in glycosylation pattern.

When exposed to superoxide radicals generated from a pyrogallol auto-oxidation system, GHG-1 treated erythrocyte suspension released higher amount of oxyhemoglobin than the unagglutinated erythrocytes.

The extent of erythrocyte hemolysis was found to be directly proportional to concentrations of hypochlorous acid.

GHG-1 was used to detect the change in the b-galactoside expression pattern in erythrocyte membrane from human donors suffering from prostate and breast cancer.

No significant change was observed in the hemolysis of lectin agglutinated erythrocytes collected from pre-operated breast cancer patients, whereas significant increase was observed in normal healthy control and postoperated samples.

Findings of this study proclaim GHG-1 as an important tool for the detection of post-malignant changes in glycosylation pattern.