Profiling Glycoconjugate Dysregulation in Disease: Current Methodologies, Novel Approaches and Future Outlook

Glycosylation plays a central role in various cellular events like protein folding and degradation, cell communication or molecular recognition in immune response. These are events which require shaping dedicated glycoconjugates, involving the cooperation of different enzymes from distinct cell compartments. Thus, system-wide analysis, especially from an –omics perspective is of considerable interest in the field of glycobiology, particularly in a pathological context. This is challenging considering the large space of biomolecules decorated with sugars such as glycoproteins, glycolipids or peptidoglycans, which can be found in different configurations, adding an extra layer of versatility in the molecular tools available at the cellular level, which aid the cell in adapting to various conditions or respond to different pathogens by exposing specific glycoepitopes.

Most of these glycoconjugates are altered in a pathological context, regarding their structure but also their relative abundance, such as the well-known Tn and sTn tumor antigens. Also, certain glycosphingolipids were suggested as potential biomarkers for some brain tumors or neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, these could constitute attractive targets in a clinical context, particular if these could be sampled from various biological fluids. Emerging results revealed different glycoconjugates isolated from extracellular vesicles as potential cancer biomarkers. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in the development of methodologies able to profile the repertoire of glycoconjugates from different samples.
Dysregulated glycolytic enzymes have been also associated to neurodegenerative diseases and metobolic disorders.

The current Research Topic intends to collect contributions in the field of glycoconjugate analysis, highlighting recent advancements in methodological and technological developments but also addressing current challenges. Topics that would be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Recent advancements in mass-spectrometry based glycoproteomics analysis

• Novel methodologies for carbohydrate separation or enrichment from biological fluids or tissue

• Differential analysis for glycoconjugate candidate biomarker identification

• Context-disease exploration of the dysregulated glycosylation machinery

• Structural investigation of glycoepitopes

Original research articles, methods, reviews and mini-reviews describing concepts, hypotheses and trends in this field are welcomed.