GlycoMantra Updates

May 2015

GlycoMantra licensed UMB IP

GlycoMantra has exclusively licensed worldwide rights to the University of Maryland intellectual property “Methods of use for a natural Thomsen-Friedenreich disaccharide compound”.

June 2015

GlycoMantra received TEDCO grant

GlycoMantra received a grant from the TEDCO, Maryland to develop high affinity galectin-3 antagonists and to determine the bioavailability and biostability.

November 2015

Patent issued on GlycoMantra’s product

The University of Maryland has been awarded a patent on GlycoMantra’s product. GlycoMantra’s Founder, Dr. Hafiz Ahmed, is the lead inventor of the technology.

November 2015

GlycoMantra’s review on galectin-3 function in cancer metastasis.

Galectin-3, a member of the β-galactoside-binding lectin family, is involved in fibrosis as well as cancer progression and metastasis, but the detailed mechanisms of its functions remain elusive. This review discusses its structure, carbohydrate-binding properties, and involvement in various aspects of tumorigenesis and some potential carbohydrate ligands that are currently investigated to block galectin-3 activity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26640395

November 2015

A clue for cancer cell survival

GlycoMantra published a paper in Biomaterials. Cancer is characterized by abnormal energy metabolism shaped by nutrient deprivation that malignant cells experience during various stages of tumor development. This study investigated the response of nutrient-deprived cancer cells and their non-malignant counterparts to sialic acid supplementation and found that cells utilize negligible amounts of this sugar for energy. Instead cells use sialic acid to maintain cell surface glycosylation through complementary mechanisms. First, levels of key metabolites (e.g., UDP-GlcNAc and CMP-Neu5Ac) required for glycan biosynthesis are maintained or enhanced upon Neu5Ac supplementation. In concert, sialyltransferase expression increased at both the mRNA and protein levels, which facilitated increased sialylation in biochemical assays that measure sialyltransferase activity as well as at the whole cell level. In the course of these experiments, several important differences emerged that differentiated the cancer cells from their normal counterparts including resistant to sialic acid-mediated energy depletion, consistently more robust sialic acid-mediated glycan display, and distinctive cell surface vs. internal vesicle display of newly-produced sialoglycans. Finally, the impact of sialic acid supplementation on specific markers implicated in cancer progression was demonstrated by measuring levels of expression and sialylation of EGFR1 and MUC1 as well as the corresponding function of sialic acid-supplemented cells in migration assays. These findings both provide fundamental insight into the biological basis of sialic acid supplementation of nutrient-deprived cancer cells and open the door to the development of diagnostic and prognostic tools. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26295436

December 2015

GlycoMantra received NIH grant

GlycoMantra received a SBIR grant from the NIH to use a galectin-3 antagonist to prevent metastasis and elicit anti-tumor immune response.