Total serum N-glycans mark visceral leishmaniasis in human infections with Leishmania infantum

Gabriane Nascimento Porcino; Marco René Bladergroen; Viktoria Dotz; Simone Nicolardi; Elham Memarian; Luiz Gustavo Gardinassi; Carlos Henrique Nery Costa; Roque Pacheco de Almeida; Isabel Kinney Ferreira de Miranda Santos; Manfred Wuhrer

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107021

Total serum N-glycans mark visceral leishmaniasis in human infections with Leishmania infantum

iScience. 2023 Jun 5;26(7):107021. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107021. eCollection 2023 Jul 21.

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto 14049-900, Brazil.
² Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden 2333 ZA, the Netherlands.
³ Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia 74605-050, Brazil.
⁴ Instituto de Doenças Tropicais Natan Portela, Universidade Federal do Piauí, Teresina 64002-510, Brazil.
⁵ Departamento de Medicina, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Saúde - PPGCS, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Aracajú 49060-100, Brazil.

Abstract

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a clinical form of leishmaniasis with high mortality rates when not treated. Diagnosis suffers from invasive techniques and sub-optimal sensitivities. The current (affordable) treatment with pentavalent antimony as advised by the WHO is possibly harmful to the patient. There is need for an improved diagnosis to prevent possibly unnecessary treatment. N-glycan analysis may aid in diagnosis. We evaluated the N-glycan profiles from active VL, asymptomatic infections (ASYMP) and controls from non-endemic (NC) and endemic (EC) areas. Active VL has a distinct N-glycome profile that associates with disease severity. Our study suggests that the observed glycan signatures could be a valuable additive to diagnosis and assist in identifying possible markers of disease and understanding the pathogenesis of VL. Further studies are warranted to assess a possible future role of blood glycome analysis in active VL diagnosis and should aim at disease specificity.

Keywords: Glycobiology; Glycomics; Pathophysiology.