Heritability of Human Plasma -Glycome.

The -glycosylation profile of total human plasma proteins could be a useful biomarker for various pathological states. Reliable high-throughput methods for such profiling have been developed. However, studies of relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in regulating plasma -glycome are scarce. The aim of our study was to determine the role of genetic factors in phenotypic variation of plasma -glycan profile through the estimates of its heritability. Thirty-nine total plasma -glycome traits were analyzed in 2816 individuals from the TwinsUK data set. For the majority of the traits, high heritability estimates (>50%) were obtained pointing at a significant contribution of genetic factors in plasma -glycome variation, especially for glycans mostly attached to immunoglobulins. We have also found several structures with higher environmental contribution to their variation.