N-glycan profiling of papillary thyroid carcinoma tissues by MALDI-TOF-MS

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is a type of thyroid cancer whose incidence rate has increased recently all over the world. Glycosylation is a crucial post-translational modification (PTM) for the regulation of thyroid hormone synthesis in thyroid glands. However, our knowledge regarding the N-glycosylation change in PTC is limited. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to profile glycans in PTC tissues by mass spectrometry. Herein, we have analyzed the N-glycans of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues of patients diagnosed with PTC in a matched case-control study. Using MALDI-TOF(/TOF)-MS, 35 enzymatically released N-glycan compositions were characterized. The statistical analyses showed significant differences including six N-glycan compositions (p < 0.001) between patients and controls. It was determined that four of them (H5N4E1, H5N4F1E1, H5N4F1L1E1 and H5N4F1E2, E: alpha 2,6-linked sialic acid; L: alpha 2,3-linked sialic acid) were up-regulated in PTC tissues, whereas two N-glycans (H8N2 and H9N2) found to be down-regulated. Besides, a significant difference was found in six different N-glycan traits. Variants of PTC (follicular, classical, hurtle cell) were also studied to define specific N-glycan change for each variant.