Glycan Array Technology Powers Breakthrough in Pan-Cancer CAR-T Therapy

Breaking Barriers in Cancer Immunotherapy

CAR-T therapy has revolutionized the treatment of blood cancers but translating this success to solid tumors has proven much harder. A key challenge lies in finding tumorspecific targets that are absent from healthy tissues.

In a recent study supported by the Z Biotech Glycan Array Pilot Award, researchers focused on the sialyl-Tn (STn) antigen – a truncated O-glycan abnormally expressed in many epithelial cancers, including gastric, colorectal, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancers, but rare in normal tissues.

To explore its therapeutic potential, the team generated two novel antibodies, AM51.1 and AM52.1, designed to recognize STn. Among them, AM52.1 emerged as uniquely specific, showing clean reactivity to STn across tumor types while sparing healthy tissues. When engineered into a CAR scaffold, 52.1CAR T cells demonstrated potent and safe tumorkilling activity in patient-derived organoids and animal models – a breakthrough toward a pan-carcinoma CAR-T strategy.

The Critical Role of the O-Glycan Array

This leap forward would not have been possible without glycan array technology. Using the Z Biotech O-Glycan Microarray, which contains 94 distinct O-glycan structures, researchers were able to evaluate and compare the binding specificity of AM51.1 and AM52.1 side by side

• AM52.1 bound exclusively to STn, independent of whether it was attached to erine or threonine residues – even at low concentrations.
• AM51.1, in contrast, showed unwanted cross-reactivity with other sialylated structures, making it unsuitable for therapeutic use.

Figure A. Binding specificity of AM monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to various sialyl-Tn (STn)-related O-glycan structures, as measured by glycan microarray analysis. Antibodies were tested at 10 μg/mL, with B72.3 mAb included as a control. Figures are reproduced from Abrantes, R., et al. “Pan-carcinoma sialyl-Tn-targeting expands CAR therapy to solid tumors.” Cell Reports Medicine 6, 102350 (2025).

This decisive data provided the confidence to move forward with AM52.1 as the foundation for CAR-T development. The glycan array was not just a screening tool, it was the proof point that unlocked a safe and specific therapeutic path.

About the Glycan Array Pilot Award

This breakthrough study was supported by the Z Biotech Glycan Array Pilot Award, an annual program designed to encourage and empower scientists to apply glycan microarrays in innovative research. Awardees receive access to our glycan array products or in-house assay services to test pioneering ideas that can lead to major advances in human health.

By providing investigators with cutting-edge tools, the program accelerates creative discoveries in glycoscience – from cancer therapy to infectious disease research.

At Z Biotech, we believe that glycoscience holds the key to many of tomorrow’s medical breakthroughs. The success of this Glycan Array Pilot Award project underscores how powerful glycan profiling can be in solving long-standing challenges in therapy development.