Aspartylglycosamine is a biomarker for NGLY1-CDDG, a congenital disorder of deglycosylation

Abstract

Background: NGLY1-CDDG is a congenital disorder of deglycosylation caused by a defective peptide:N-glycanase (PNG). To date, all but one of the reported patients have been diagnosed through whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing, as no biochemical marker was available to identify this disease in patients. Recently, a potential urinary biomarker was reported, but the data presented suggest that this marker may be excreted intermittently.

Methods: In this study, we performed untargeted direct-infusion high-resolution mass spectrometry metabolomics in seven dried blood spots (DBS) from four recently diagnosed NGLY1-CDDG patients, to test for small-molecule biomarkers, in order to identify a potential diagnostic marker. Results were compared to 125 DBS of healthy controls and to 238 DBS of patients with other diseases.

Results: We identified aspartylglycosamine as the only significantly increased compound with a median Z-score of 4.8 (range: 3.8-8.5) in DBS of NGLY1-CDDG patients, compared to a median Z-score of -0.1 (range: -2.1-4.0) in DBS of healthy controls and patients with other diseases.

Discussion: The increase of aspartylglycosamine can be explained by lack of function of PNG. PNG catalyzes the cleavage of the proximal N-acetylglucosamine residue of an N-glycan from the asparagine residue of a protein, a step in the degradation of misfolded glycoproteins. PNG deficiency results in a single N-acetylglucosamine residue left attached to the asparagine residue which results in free aspartylglycosamine when the glycoprotein is degraded. Thus, we here identified aspartylglycosamine as the first potential small-molecule biomarker in DBS for NGLY1-CDDG, making a biochemical diagnosis for NGLY1-CDDG potentially feasible.

Keywords: Aspartylglycosamine; Biomarker; NGLY1-CDDG; Peptide:N-glycanase.