OBJECTIVETo use a glycemic method to screen hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metastasis related aberrant 1-6 fucosylated glycoproteins, and to analyze the metastasis-related alterations of annexin II.

METHODS2-DE coupled with lectin affinity blot, lectin affinity precipitation followed by MALDI-TOF-MS/MS was established to screen glycoproteins related to HCC metastasis. Immunofluorescence analysis, Western blot and real-time PCR were performed on higher and lower metastatic HCC cell lines to detect the protein expression levels and mRNA levels of annexin II.

RESULTSThe Lens culinaris agglutinin (LCA) affinity glycoprotein profiles from MHCC97-L and MHCC97-H cells were differentially displayed when compared with Hep3B. Annexin II was identified by MALDI-TOF-MS/MS and its increased core-fucosylation was associated with HCC metastasis and it was confirmed. In addition, we found that annexin II was distributed in the cytoplasm and it had higher protein and gene expressions in MHCC97-L and MHCC97-H cells than in Hep3B cells.

CONCLUSIONOur results suggest that the increase of annexin II and its expression levels, and the increase of core-fucosylation might all be related to HCC metastatic ability.