Department of Infection Control, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Center for Precision Health, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia.
OMICS. 2021 Apr;25(4):242-248. doi: 10.1089/omi.2021.0016. Epub 2021 Apr 1.
A global rise in life expectancy comes with an increased burden of serious life-long health issues and the need for useful real-time measures of the aging processes. Studies have shown the value of biochemical signatures of immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycosylation as clinically relevant biomarkers to differentiate healthy from accelerated aging. Most human biological processes rely on glycosylation of proteins to regulate their function, but these events appear sensitive to environmental changes, age, and the presence of disease. Specifically, variations in N-glycosylation of IgG can adversely affect inflammatory pathways underpinning unhealthy aging and chronic disease pathogenesis. This expert review highlights the discrepancies between an organism's age in years of life (chronological age) versus age in terms of health status (biological age). The article examines and synthesizes the studies on IgG -glycan profiles and the third alphabet of life, the sugar code, in relation to their relevance as dynamic indicators of aging, and to differentiate between normal and accelerated aging. The levels of -glycan structures change with aging, suggesting that monitoring the alterations of serum glycan biosignatures with glycomics might allow real-time studies of human aging in the near future. Glycomics brings in yet another systems science technology platform to strengthen the emerging multiomics studies of aging and aging-related diseases.
全球预期寿命的提高伴随着严重的终身健康问题负担的增加，以及对衰老过程进行有用的实时测量的需求。研究表明，免疫球蛋白 G（IgG）N-糖基化的生化特征作为有临床意义的生物标志物，可将健康人群与加速衰老人群区分开来。大多数人类生物过程依赖于蛋白质的糖基化来调节其功能，但这些事件似乎对环境变化、年龄和疾病的存在敏感。具体来说，IgG 的 N-糖基化的变化会对炎症途径产生不利影响，这些炎症途径是不健康衰老和慢性疾病发病机制的基础。本专家评论强调了生物体的年龄（即生命年龄）与健康状况（生物学年龄）之间的差异。本文研究了 IgG-聚糖谱和生命的第三个字母——糖码，并综合了它们作为衰老的动态指标的相关性，以及区分正常衰老和加速衰老的相关性。-聚糖结构的水平随年龄的增长而变化，这表明通过糖组学监测血清糖生物标志物的变化可能允许在不久的将来对人类衰老进行实时研究。糖组学带来了另一个系统科学技术平台，以加强衰老和与衰老相关疾病的新兴多组学研究。
