Single Cell Glycome and Transcriptome Profiling Enabled by a Library of Anti-glycan Antibodies

A major barrier to developing tools to better study glycans is the dearth of high-quality, well-characterized anti-glycan antibodies. To create a resource for optimally selecting specific anti-glycan antibodies and understanding their general properties, we generated a publicly accessible database of 650 anti-glycan antibody sequences, recombinantly expressed a library of 154 of these antibodies, and characterized their binding properties using a glycan microarray.

We DNA-barcoded a subset of these antibodies to create a platform enabling simultaneous high-throughput glycome and transcriptome profiling at the single-cell level. Using this platform, we profiled the two isogenic colorectal cancer cell lines, SW480 and SW620. The results reveal a variety of glycans associated with cancer stem cells and metastasis and demonstrate the power of integrating the glycome into multi-omic efforts to discover biomarkers and therapeutic targets.