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영어

Our center, Daejeon-KRIBB-FHCRC Research Cooperation Center, was established to develop ‘cancer biomarkers’ in collaboration with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Feb. 2005 with supports from the Daejeon Metropolitan City. Cancer is often difficult to achieve early diagnosis, which is, however, a decisive requisite for favorable outcome in cancer treatments. In order to develop the cancer biomarkers, we’ve tried to pinpoint cancer cells-originating aberrant glycoproteins which would be a well-grounded approach to cancer biomarker discovery ultimately using blood. One of the glycosyltransferases responsible for aberrant glycosylation in cancer is N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase V (GnT-V), which catalyzes an addition of b1,6-N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) to the core N-glycan, and many lines of evidence have demonstrated the role of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase V (GnT-V) in cancer development. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) and protein tyrosine phosphatase kappa (PTPk) were good models involved in cancer malignancy upon aberrantly glycosylation. Basically by adopting multi-lectins enrichment strategy, candidate proteins showing high sensitivity and specificity during the discovery phase were selected and the panel of biomarker candidates is currently under in-depth analyses for validation. Validation is a time-consuming step for biomarker developments requiring confirmation of the biomarker candidates through multiple pairs of clinical samples. That is why a sensitive, multiplexing validation method is necessary. To address this challenge, we are developing as a DNA-tagged antibody-based ‘New’ validation method, enabling a multiplexed validation of biomarkers. Furthermore, the collaboration with the FHCRC leads to an expansion of the ‘epigenetic’ studies to ‘glycogenome’, requiring incessant collaborations. Recently, Daejeon Metropolitan City became a ‘sister city’ for Sapporo City in Japan. It’s noteworthy that these relationships prompt to establish a ‘north pacific network of cancer biomarker development’ among the KRIBB, FHCRC and Sapporo Medical University.