Heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycans are key components of cell microenvironment and fine structure of their polysaccharide HS chains plays an important role in cell-cell interactions， adhesion， migration and signaling. It is formed on non-template basis， so， structure and functional activity of HS biosynthetic machinery is crucial for correct HS biosynthesis and post-synthetic modification. To reveal cancer-related changes in transcriptional pattern of HS biosynthetic system， the expression of HS metabolism-involved genes (EXT1/2， NDST1/2， GLCE， 3OST1/HS3ST1， SULF1/2， HPSE) in human normal (fibroblasts， PNT2) and cancer (MCF7， LNCaP， PC3， DU145， H157， H647， A549， U2020， U87， HT116， KRC/Y) cell lines and breast， prostate， colon tumors was studied. Real-time RT-PCR and Western-blot analyses revealed specific transcriptional patterns and expression levels of HS biosynthetic system both in different cell lines in vitro and cancers in vivo. Balance between transcriptional activities of elongation- and post-synthetic modification- involved genes was suggested as most informative parameter for HS biosynthetic machinery characterization. Normal human fibroblasts showed elongation-oriented HS biosynthesis， while PNT2 prostate epithelial cells had modification-oriented one. However， cancer epithelial cells demonstrated common tendency to acquire fibroblast-like elongation-oriented mode of HS biosynthetic system. Surprisingly， aggressive metastatic cancer cells (U2020， DU145， KRC/Y) retained modification-oriented HS biosynthesis similar to normal PNT2 cells， possibly enabling the cells to keep like-to-normal cell surface glycosylation pattern to escape antimetastatic control. The obtained results show the cell type-specific changes of HS-biosynthetic machinery in cancer cells in vitro and tissue-specific changes in different cancers in vivo， supporting a close involvement of HS biosynthetic system in carcinogenesis.