CHoMP: A Chemoenzymatic Histology Method Using Clickable Probes

The characterization of aberrant glycosylation patterns in biopsied patient samples represents a remarkable challenge for scientists and medical doctors due to the lack of specific methods for detection. Here, we report the development of a histological method, dubbed CHoMP—chemoenzymatic histology of membrane polysaccharides—for analyzing glycosylation patterns in mammalian tissues. This method exploits a recombinant glycosyltransferase to transfer a monosaccharide analogue equipped with a chemical handle to a specific cell‐surface glycan target, which can then be derivatized with imaging probes by using bioorthogonal click chemistry for visualization. We applied CHoMP to survey changes in expression of N ‐acetyllactosamine (LacNAc) in human samples from patients afflicted with lung adenocarcinoma and observed a sharp decrease in expression levels between normal and early grade tumors, thus suggesting a potential application of this technique in early cancer diagnosis.