Epitopes of Enzymes Involved in Sialylation with Special Reference to Lung Cancer

Abstract

Environmental pollutants, poor air quality, urban growth, deforestation, burning of fuel and indoor air pollution lead to different respiratory diseases including lung cancer with fatal consequences. Almost 2 million people die every year due to harmful effects of indoor air pollutants. Especially an enormous number of children are being affected. Environment pollution is not only reported to affect the lungs but also damage the stem cells and their niche thus causing a permanent damage to the cell renewal system of our body. Thus, on one hand, it is important to understand the effect of pollutants causing cancer, and on the other hand, it is very important to understand the biochemical changes that are associated with the biology of lung cancer in order to search for strategies to halt the cancer progression and improve the quality of life. Altered expression of sialic acid is reported to be a hallmark in lung cancer and in other cancer. Post-translational sialylation are reported to be dysregulated leading to alteration of sialylation in receptor in lung cancer which is associated with their altered functioning. At this point, it seems the understanding of the epitopes of the enzymes involved in sialylation pathway and targeting them by specifically designed antibodies could be a probable strategy to halt lung cancer. In this study, the epitopes for different enzymes involved in sialylation of biomolecules are reported using a bioinformatics approach. More research focused on design of antibodies targeted to these epitopes in order to target these enzymes needs to be studied so that effective means of control of lung cancer can be designed forms the scope of future research.

Keywords: Sialic acids, stem cells, pollutants, lung cancer and environment

Cite this Article

Shyamasree Ghosh. Epitopes of Enzymes Involved in Sialylation with Special Reference to Lung Cancer. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Life Sciences. 2018; 8(2): 11–19p.