Aberrant expression of N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase-IVa and IVb (GnT-IVa and b) in pancreatic cancer

The goal of this study was to identify glycosyltransferases that are specifically expressed in pancreatic cancer. To investigate the gene expression of glycosyltransferases between pancreatic cancer and normal pancreatic tissues, we performed DNA-microarray (involving about 1000 oligosaccharide-related genes) using RNA mixtures of pancreatic cancer cells and normal pancreatic tissues. Eighty-six genes were up-regulated and thirty-two were down-regulated in pancreatic cancer, compared to normal pancreatic tissue. Among these changes, it is noteworthy that the expression of GnT-IVa was decreased and the expression of GnT-IVb was increased in pancreatic cancer, compared to normal pancreatic tissues. Although GnT-IVa and -IVb are involved in the same reaction as a glycosyltransferase, their chromosomal localization is different. When 5 cases of pancreatic cancer tissues were examined using the real-time RT-PCR method, the expression of GnT-IVb was dominant in tumor tissues and the expression of GnT-IVa was dominant in the surrounding normal tissues. The expression of GnT-IVa was increased in all 3 cell lines that had been treated with 5-aza-C and butyrate. These results suggest that the down-regulation of GnT-IVa in pancreatic cancer cells is due to an epigenetic abnormality in the gene.