Decoding the code of cancer with glycoproteomics

As a young scholar who grew up in the land of Qilu and was deeply influenced by Confucian culture, sun Shisheng has always attached great importance to the country and his alma mater, even though he has studied abroad for many years With the call of the times, sun Shisheng, who was selected into the national "thousand talents plan" youth program, resolutely returned to his alma mater, Northwest University, hoping to apply his advanced technology mastered and developed in the United States to the vast land of Northwest China, so as to make a contribution to the Alma mater, northwest region and even the whole China's scientific research level to truly achieve the world-class integration "In my opinion, there are certain advantages and space to carry out work in the western region There should be relatively less external temptation and interference This quiet is actually helpful for basic scientific research." For the future, "I will continue to carry out cutting-edge research in the field of glycoproteomics and biomarker discovery research" which I am good at, contributing to the decoding of human cancer codes In an interview with China Science Daily, Sun said And glycoprotein After graduating from the University in 2005, sun Shisheng entered Northwest University for postgraduate study, where he obtained master's and doctor's degrees "When I was in college, I was more interested in glycoprotein There are few researchers in this field, but in fact, they are quite important At that time, the introduction of glycoprotein in textbooks was very limited Since then, I began to pay attention to the collection of this information I didn't expect that one day I really engaged in this research " Sun Shisheng recalled Glycoprotein is a kind of protein which is covalently modified by glycan The oligosaccharide chain on glycoprotein is covalently linked with the side chain of specific amino acid residues in peptide chain by glycoside bond Glycoprotein is widely found on the surface of animals, plants, eukaryotic microorganisms and various viruses, with various kinds and extensive functions The synthesis of N-linked sugar chain starts from endoplasmic reticulum and completes in Golgi body The whole process of its synthesis and decomposition is specifically catalyzed and precisely regulated by various enzymes Its main biological function is cell or molecular recognition, such as human ABO blood group and sperm egg binding process; in addition, receptor protein and tumor cell surface antigen are also glycoproteins In recent years, the scientific community has gradually realized that glycoprotein is related to the occurrence and development of many diseases, such as infection, tumor, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, kidney disease, diabetes and some genetic diseases Moreover, glycoproteins and glycolipids on the surface of cells can "shed" to the surrounding environment or enter the blood circulation, which can be used as a sign of related tissue or cell abnormalities to provide information for clinical diagnosis; glycoproteins in body fluids often have specific or strong or weak changes when suffering from some diseases, and the discovery and application of these glycoproteins will be helpful for disease diagnosis or prognosis judgment At the beginning of postgraduate study, sun Shisheng was engaged in the research of biochip "Later, because I participated in a project of detecting the host range of influenza virus with sugar chip, I was lucky to enter the research field of glycoprotein Maybe this is fate," Sun said In 2011, after graduating from Northwest University, sun Shisheng chose to go to Dr Hui Zhang Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in the United States as a postdoctoral student to continue his research on methodology and biomarker discovery of glycoproteome Dr Zhang established the classical method of glycoprotein analysis, which belongs to the authority of proteomics in the world His laboratory has many international cutting-edge technologies and research Fortunately, sun Shisheng benefited a lot from his work in such a laboratory "In foreign countries, one of the most profound feelings is that when doing scientific research abroad, originality is emphasized In the United States, Mr Zhang will say that someone is already doing well in this field We should choose some new fields to explore Many scholars think it will be more difficult to do research that others have not done In fact, it is because no one has done it that there will be more room to play " Glycoproteomics is of great significance In the United States for many years, sun Shisheng's research has also produced a lot of international influence With the development of proteomics, posttranslational modification of proteins has become a new research focus As one of the most important and common post-translational modifications of proteins, glycosylation is mainly involved in intercellular recognition, regulation, signal transduction, immune response, cell transformation and disease development The high throughput glycoproteomic research method is the basis of glycosylation analysis During his stay in the United States, he created a new method for analyzing N-glycoproteome comprehensively and systematically by changing the analysis strategy based on the classical analysis method of glycoprotein established by Dr Zhang This method can be widely used in tumor marker screening, protein antibody, virus and other biological samples At the same time, sun Shisheng established some other new methods of glycoproteomics based on mass spectrometry In the application of proteomics / glycoproteomics in the study of disease biomarkers and pathogenesis, sun Shisheng also made some progress He and his collaborators successfully applied proteomics / glycoproteomics related methodology to the analysis of various clinical samples Its application scope includes: human influenza virus, HIV and its infected cells and hosts, human saliva of different ages and genders, hepatoma cell line and serum of HCC patients, prostate cancer cell line, tissue and serum, ovarian cancer cell line and tissue, lung cancer cell line model and renal failure animal model "It is worth mentioning that I participated in the US clinical proteomic tumor analysis (cptac) project as one of the main directors of sample preparation during my postdoctoral period My laboratory is one of the five core laboratories participating in this project in the United States In this project, I have been responsible for the establishment of sample analysis method, standard process, sample preparation, quality monitoring and problem solving At present, the proteome and glycoproteome maps of all clinical samples have been successfully resolved, and the proteome research results have been published in cell journal, "Sun said "Thousands of young people" returning home Although Liangyuan is good, it is not the hometown After studying and working in the United States for many years, sun finally chose to return to Northwest University, and in 2017, he successfully obtained the support of the youth program of the "Thousand Talents Program" of the central organization department "I chose to go back to Northwest University, largely because of my love for my alma mater Here are my teachers, classmates and friends for help and support In recent years, the comprehensive strength of Northwest University with a long history is also on the rise "Sun Shisheng pointed out that the academic atmosphere of Northwest University is relatively free, and there are not too many restrictions on young scholars." there are also considerations in selecting Northwest University " After returning to his alma mater, sun hopes to serve the motherland with his research experience and academic achievements in the fields of glycoproteomics and the discovery of new tumor markers, and build his alma mater better Looking forward to the future, Sun said he would continue to work on the development of new technologies in glycoproteomics and apply them to the discovery of new biomarkers, the study of pathogenesis and the study of glycosylation regulation mechanism of proteins He has made a detailed work plan for these ideas According to sun, proteomic research technology has an attractive application prospect in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of major human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease As one of the important biological macromolecules, sugars participate in various important biological processes However, the research of systemic glycobiology, including the analysis of systemic sugar chain, high-throughput glycoprotein and glycolipid, is just in its infancy: "there is bound to be a lot to be done in this field in China."