Nigel Groome Studentship: Cancer-associated cellular glycosylation: its regulation and functional significance

Cancer cells synthesise very simple, truncated sugar chains (glycans) on their proteins compared to normal cells. These are associated with metastasis (the spread of the cancer to distant sites) and poor prognosis in cancer patients.

Differently glycosylated cells look morphologically distinct and behave differently in functional assays; some are rounded and adhesive to the cells that line blood vessels, implying that they may be involved in capture of circulating cancer cells from the bloodstream, while others are spindly, motile and invasive, implying that they may lead tissue invasion. This is reminiscent of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process that normal cells use in embryogenesis, tissue remodelling and wound healing.

This project will determine the glycosylation pathways that regulate synthesis of cancer-associated truncated glycans, and investigate their functional significance in metastasis, including adhesion and invasion, associated with EMT.

This project will involve flow cytometry and confocal microscopy to characterise the glycosylation profiles of cancer cells and thereby identify the glycosylation pathways involved; qPCR and western blotting will be used to explore levels of expression of relevant glycosylation genes; the glycosylation pathways will be disrupted by knockdown of key genes, and then in vitro assays of cell adhesion and invasion will be employed to assess how this influences cancer cell behaviour associated with EMT gene signatures.

The studentship requires you to undertake the equivalent of up to 6 hrs of teaching per week on average, during semester time, and to include preparation and marking (but no more than 20 hrs per week), and to participate in a teaching skills course without further remuneration.