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Abstract Cancer early detection and treatment response prediction continue to pose significant challenges. Cancer liquid biopsies focusing on detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and DNA (ctDNA) have shown enormous potential due to their non-invasive nature and the implications in precision cancer management. Recently, liquid biopsy has been further expanded to profile glycoproteins, which are the products of post-translational modifications of proteins and play key roles in both normal and pathological processes, including cancers. The advancements in chemical and mass spectrometry-based technologies and artificial intelligence-based platforms have enabled extensive studies of cancer and organ-specific changes in glycans and glycoproteins through glycomics and glycoproteomics. Glycoproteomic analysis has emerged as a promising tool for biomarker discovery and development in early detection of cancers and prediction of treatment efficacy including response to immunotherapies. These biomarkers could play a crucial role in aiding in early intervention and personalized therapy decisions. In this review, we summarize the significant advance in cancer glycoproteomic biomarker studies and the promise and challenges in integration into clinical practice to improve cancer patient care.

Abstract Cluster of differentiation 47 (CD47) (also known as integrin-associated protein) is a ubiquitously expressed glycoprotein of the immunoglobulin superfamily that plays a critical role in self-recognition. Various solid and hematologic cancers exploit CD47 expression in order to evade immunological eradication, and its overexpression is clinically correlated with poor prognoses. One essential mechanism behind CD47-mediated immune evasion is that it can interact with signal regulatory protein-alpha (SIRPα) expressed on myeloid cells, causing phosphorylation of the SIRPα cytoplasmic immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motifs and recruitment of Src homology 2 domain-containing tyrosine phosphatases to ultimately result in delivering an anti-phagocytic—“don’t eat me”—signal. Given its essential role as a negative checkpoint for innate immunity and subsequent adaptive immunity, CD47-SIRPα axis has been explored as a new target for cancer immunotherapy and its disruption has demonstrated great therapeutic promise. Indeed, CD47 blocking antibodies have been found to decrease primary tumor size and/or metastasis in various pre-clinical models. In this review, we highlight the various functions of CD47, discuss anti-tumor responses generated by both the innate and adaptive immune systems as a consequence of administering anti-CD47 blocking antibody, and finally elaborate on the clinical potential of CD47 blockade. We argue that CD47 is a checkpoint molecule for both innate and adaptive immunity for tumor evasion and is thus a promising target for cancer immunotherapy.