Dynamic Glycoprotein Hyposialylation Promotes Chemotherapy Evasion and Metastatic Seeding of Quiescent Circulating Tumor Cell Clusters in Breast Cancer

Abstract

This study discovers that dynamic loss of terminal sialylation in glycoproteins of CTC clusters contributes to the fate of cellular dormancy, advantageous evasion to chemotherapy, and enhanced metastatic seeding. It identifies PODXL as a glycoprotein substrate of ST6GAL1 and a candidate target to counter chemoevasion-associated metastasis of quiescent tumor cells. This article is featured in Selected Articles from This Issue, p. 1949.