Elevated colonic microbiota-associated paucimannosidic and truncated N-glycans in pediatric ulcerative colitis

Pediatric ulcerative colitis (UC) is a distinct type of inflammatory bowel disease with severe disease activity and rapid progression, which can lead to detrimental life-long consequences. The pathogenesis of pediatric UC remains unclear, although dysbiosis of the gut microbiota has been considered an important factor. In this study, we used mass spectrometry-based glycomic approaches to examine the N-glycans that were associated with the intestinal mucosal-luminal interface microbiota cells of treatment-naive pediatric UC or control patients. We observed abundant paucimannosidic and other truncated N-glycans that were associated with the microbiota and found that the pediatric UC microbiota samples contained significantly higher levels of these atypical N-glycans compared to those of controls. This study indicates that intestinal N-glycans may be used as novel UC biomarker candidates and the aberrant metabolism of glycans by gut microbiota may be involved in the pathogenesis of UC in children.