Detected glycan structures of IgG from rheumatoid arthritis patients compared with helathy induviduals – A Literature Study

Sammanfattning: This bachelor thesis is a literature study presenting detected glycan structures of serum IgG, in literature, from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and healthy individuals. It is a systematic literature study. The study involved searching theoretical information about glycosylation, glycans and their functions, the structure of immunoglobulin G (IgG) glycosylation and its functions in the immune defense, rheumatoid arthritis, methods for IgG glycopeptide enrichment, quantification and characterization methods (capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry). The method used for the literature study involved searches in databases with keywords, manual research and quality control of the sources. In the result, two different research articles about abnormal IgG glycosylation in RA compared with healthy controls, are presented and compared. The methodology the researchers used are briefly described supported by the theoretical background. It can be stated that identification and detection of abnormal glycan structures of IgG from RA patients have potential to be used as biomarkers. The glycoproteomics field is emerging for sensitive and high throughput quantification and identification methods combined with enrichment methods for efficient analysis. Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) has shown good potential for characterization of glycan structures and has been widely used in clinical diagnostics.