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Research paper : Development of basic tools for glycoscience and their application to cancer diagnosis (H. Narimatsu)−211−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.5 No.3 (2012) higher priority and the bile and serum concentrations of the candidate molecules in the patients of cholangiocarcinoma were estimated by western blotting and immunoprecipitation. We confirmed that the candidate molecules were actually produced by the cancer cells based on the immunostaining of the cancer tissues obtained from the patients. Currently, two assay systems, anti-MUC1 antibody/WFA and anti-protein Y/WFA, have been established, and the marker concentration of each system in the bile of patients was quantified. The detection rate of cancer cells in the most widely used diagnosis system is low at about 20-30 %, but our system indicates 85-90 % of high diagnostic accuracy.[43] This methodology is proved to be effective for the assays with patient serum as well as bile.6 ConclusionWe are applying the same strategy aiming successful development of truly useful clinical diagnosis markers for other cancers, such as lung cancer, ovary cancer, pancreas cancer, prostate cancer. The most important thing for development of disease markers is the tight relationship with reliable clinical doctors for collaborative research. The research and development should be pursued in careful consideration of the following points: (1) What is the really desired marker? (2) What kind of phenomena or indices should be compared to achieve the goal? Can the collaborative doctors offer the samples for comparison? (3) Are there suitable samples of patients with clear disease history retained at the clinical site? (4) Presence of long-time chronological samples of the same patients is very important if possible. (5) Presence of samples of the same patients before and after treatment is also very important.There is a bad example of the cancer biomarker search. In the serum of the terminal cancer patients, there are abundant abnormal molecules due to cachexy caused by the state of cancer. Although more than several hundred kinds of abnormal molecules can be identified immediately in comparison of sera from the terminal cancer patients and healthy controls, these are clinically useless. Truly helpful biomarkers for judgment of disease progression cannot be found by the comparison between the terminal cancer patients and healthy controls.More than 10 years of the scientific activity in the field of glycoscience at AIST is the most substantial scientific experiment for me because of the following: (1) We were able to receive enough grant through NEDO for our research. (2) We were able to invite excellent researchers from outside sources. (3) We were able to have researchers from various scientific backgrounds such as medical science, agriculture, physical science, and engineering. (4) We started the glycoscience with about 30 members, but now we have about 100 members aiming toward the same goal. In addition, I would like to enhance the collaboration in the Asian region for glycoscience. When I started the glycogene project 11 years ago, I imagined the great development of science in China 10 years later. Therefore, I hired about 10 Chinese post-doctoral researchers and educated them in glycoscience from the beginning. They accomplished their research in 2 to 3 years and returned to China, and now they are holding professorships and important roles for development of Chinese glycoscience. Last year, we established a branch office of RCMG of AIST within the Shanghai Jiao Tong University to facilitate the collaborative research, and the common scientific themes are pursued through frequent interaction of researchers. I am expecting further cooperation with many organizations through acceptance and education at AIST of post-doctoral researchers and doctoral students from domestic and international universities. I am sure that the 21st century will be the era of Asia. To emphasize the cooperation in Asia in the field of glycoscience, we founded Asian Consortium of Glycoscience and Glycotechnology (ACGG) and hosted the first ACGG symposium in Tsukuba 3 years ago. The second symposium was held in Taipei and the third in Shanghai, and its participants are increasing rapidly. References[1]L. Cheng, K. Tachibana, H. Iwasaki, A. Kameyama, Y. Zhang, T. Kubota, T. Hiruma, K. Tachibana, T. Kudo, JM. Guo and H. Narimatsu: Characterization of a novel human UDP-GalNAc transferase, pp-GalNAc-T15, FEBS Lett., 566(1), 17-24 (2004).[2]L. Cheng, K. Tachibana, Y. Zhang, JM. Guo, K. Tachibana, A. Kameyama, H. Wang, T. Hiruma, H. Iwasaki, A. Togayachi, T. Kudo and H. Narimatsu: Characterization of a novel human UDP-GalNAc transferase, pp-GalNAc-T10, FEBS Lett., 531(2), 115-121 (2002).[3]K. Fujimura, H. Sawaki, T. Sakai, T. Hiruma, N. Nakanishi, T. Sato, T. Ohkura and H. Narimatsu: LARGE2 facilitates the maturation of -dystroglycan more effectively than LARGE, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 329(3), 1162-1171 (2005).[4]M. Gotoh, T. Sato, T. Akashima, H. Iwasaki, A. Kameyama, H. Mochizuki, T. Yada, N. Inaba, Y. Zhang, N. Kikuchi, YD. Kwon, A. Togayachi, T. Kudo, S. Nishihara, H. Watanabe, K. Kimata and H. Narimatsu: Enzymatic synthesis of chondroitin with a novel chondroitin sulfate N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase that transfersN-acetylgalactosamine to glucuronic acid in initiation and elongation of chondroitin sulfate synthesis, J. Biol. Chem., 277(41), 38189-38196 (2002).[5]M. Gotoh, T. Sato, K. Kiyohara, A. Kameyama, N. Kikuchi, YD. Kwon, Y. Ishizuka, T. Iwai, H. Nakanishi and H. Narimatsu: Molecular cloning and characterization of 1,4-N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferases IV synthesizing N,N'-diacetyllactosediamine, FEBS Lett., 562(1-3), 134-140 (2004).[6]M. Gotoh, T. Yada, T. Sato, T. Akashima, H. Iwasaki,

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