Sweet Strategies in Prostate Cancer Biomarker Research: Focus on a Prostate Specific Antigen

A clarion call for early diagnosis of prostate cancer (PCa) can be addressed using new strategies such as aberrant protein glycosylation. Proteins are naturally affected by numerous post-translational modifications, mainly by glycosylation which is associated with physiological and pathological transformation participating in the development of diseases such as various types of cancer, but also neurodegenerative disorders, endocrine abnormalities, AIDS, etc. Therefore, glycoproteins play crucial role in cancer biomarker research and determination of glycosylation is nowadays one of the key analytical tasks. Predominantly used approach based on affinity assays using lectins as glycorecognition elements has become an essential part in the biomedical research with great prospects in the clinical diagnostics. Owing to their ability to specifically recognize saccharide structures, lectins can be applied for binding to different molecules and substrates such as proteins, lipids, cell walls as well as in biological materials, including stem cells and microorganisms. In order to improve the diagnostic potential of well-known cancer biomarkers, lectin-based biosensors and biochips are already being widely used for the detection of glycoproteins. In this review, we will focus on various bioassay strategies for glycoprofiling of a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) with emphasis to modern and prospective techniques suitable for analysis of PSA glycan motifs as biosensors, biochips and mass spectrometry methods. All mentioned methods are suitable for applications in research, diagnosis and therapy of PCa.