Publications by authors named "Roisin O' Flaherty"

Unlabelled: The vaginal microbiome is a key player in the etiology of spontaneous preterm birth. This study aimed to illustrate maternal environmental factors associated with vaginal microbiota composition and function in pregnancy. Women in healthy pregnancy had vaginal microbial sampling from the posterior vaginal fornix performed at 16 weeks gestation.

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Recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) is a biopharmaceutical frequently used in the treatment of anemia. It is a heavily glycosylated protein with a diverse and complex glycome. EPO -glycosylation influences important pharmacological parameters, prominently serum half-life.

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(1) Aim: To describe, in a general adult population, the serum glycome in relation to age in men and women, and investigate the association of glycome patterns with age-related comorbidity; (2) Methods: The serum glycome was studied by hydrophilic interaction chromatography with ultra-performance liquid chromatography in 1516 randomly selected adults (55.3% women; age range 18-91 years). Covariates included lifestyle factors, metabolic disorders, inflammatory markers, and an index of comorbidity.

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A significant proportion of the infant gut microbiome is considered to be acquired from the mother during and after birth. Thus begins a lifelong and dynamic relationship with microbes that has an enduring impact on host health. Based on a cohort of 135 mother-infant (F = 72, M = 63) dyads (MicrobeMom: ISRCTN53023014), we investigated the phenomenon of microbial strain transfer, with a particular emphasis on the use of a combined metagenomic-culture-based approach to determine the frequency of strain transfer involving members of the genus Bifidobacterium, including species/strains present at low relative abundance.

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The Cost Action "Innovation with glycans: new frontiers from synthesis to new biological targets" (INNOGLY) hosted the Workshop "Neuroglycoproteins in health and disease", in Alicante, Spain, on March 2022. This event brought together an european group of scientists that presented novel insights into changes in glycosylation in diseases of the central nervous system and cancer, as well as new techniques to study protein glycosylation. Herein we provide the abstracts of all the presentations.

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Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) results in disruption of tissue integrity and loss of function. We hypothesize that glycosylation has a role in determining the occurrence of regeneration and that biomaterial treatment can influence this glycosylation response. We investigated the glycosylation response to spinal cord transection in and rat.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study involved 1,516 adults, with findings showing that a significant portion were identified as risk drinkers, especially among men.
  • Results indicate that certain -glycan profiles effectively differentiate risk drinkers from non-risk drinkers, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, although sensitivity remains relatively low.
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  • Classical galactosemia (CG) is a rare metabolic disorder caused by a deficiency in the enzyme galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase, leading to long-term complications such as cognitive and neurological issues, which are not well understood.
  • This study analyzed glycosylation biomarkers in 95 CG patients and found significant differences in glycan traits compared to controls, particularly in the homozygous c.563A-G/p.Gln188Arg cohort of 49 patients.
  • The results indicated that dietary galactose intake could positively influence cognitive functioning, as higher galactose intake was correlated with improved intelligence scores and certain glycan profiles in CG patients.
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Protein glycosylation contributes to critical biological function of glycoproteins. Glycan analysis is essential for the production of biopharmaceuticals as well as for the identification of disease biomarkers. However, glycans are highly heterogeneous, which has considerably hampered the progress of glycomics.

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Article Synopsis
  • Early diagnosis and dietary treatment in classical galactosemia may not prevent long-term complications, particularly in the central nervous system, highlighting the diverse clinical outcomes among patients.
  • This study aimed to enhance understanding of classical galactosemia's natural history and investigate potential prognostic biomarkers related to clinical outcomes, including intellectual performance and movement disorders.
  • Results showed a wide range of intellectual outcomes and a high incidence of movement disorders and primary ovarian insufficiency among patients, but no significant differences in the studied biomarkers between those with poor or normal intellectual outcomes.
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Glycosylation is one of the most fundamental post-translational modifications. Importantly, glycosylation is altered in many cancers. These alterations have been proven to impact on tumor progression and to promote tumor cell survival.

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-glycan alterations in the nervous system can result in different neuropathological symptoms such as mental retardation, seizures, and epilepsy. Studies have reported the characterization of -glycans in rodent brains, but there is a lack of spatial resolution as either the tissue samples were homogenized or specific proteins were selected for analysis of glycosylation. We hypothesize that region-specific resolution of -glycans isolated from the striatum and substantia nigra (SN) can give an insight into the establishment and pathophysiological degeneration of neural circuitry in Parkinson's disease.

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The manufacturing of recombinant protein is traditionally undertaken in mammalian cell culture. Today, speed, cost and safety are the primary considerations for process improvements in both upstream and downstream manufacturing. Leaders in the biopharmaceutical industry are striving for continuous improvements to increase throughput, lower costs and produce safer more efficacious drugs.

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Blood biomarkers may be used to detect physiological imbalance and potential disease. However, blood sampling is difficult and expensive, and not applicable in commercial settings. Instead, individual milk samples are readily available at low cost, can be sampled easily and analysed instantly.

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IgG Fc glycans were characterized in 225 healthy children and 40 children with unexplained recurrent respiratory infections, revealing age-dependent variation and suggesting a role for IgG glycosylation in immunocompetence.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Seventy-six laboratories from various sectors around the world participated, submitting 103 reports using different analytical methods to examine glycan distributions.
  • * The study revealed significant diversity in results, with up to 48 glycan compositions identified by individual labs, highlighting the need for standardization in glycosylation analysis methods.
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The direct association of the genome, transcriptome, metabolome, lipidome and proteome with the serum glycome has revealed systems of interconnected cellular pathways. The exact roles of individual glycoproteomes in the context of disease have yet to be elucidated. In a move toward personalized medicine, it is now becoming critical to understand disease pathogenesis, and the traits, stages, phenotypes and molecular features that accompany it, as the disruption of a whole system.

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-Glycosylation is a fundamentally important protein modification with a major impact on glycoprotein characteristics such as serum half-life and receptor interaction. More than half of the proteins in human serum are glycosylated, and the relative abundances of protein glycoforms often reflect alterations in health and disease. Several analytical methods are currently capable of analyzing the total serum -glycosylation in a high-throughput manner.

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Background: Classical Galactosaemia (CG) (OMIM #230400) is a rare inborn error of galactose metabolism caused by deficiency of the enzyme galactose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase (GALT). Long-term complications persist in treated patients despite dietary galactose restriction with significant variations in outcomes suggesting epigenetic glycosylation influences. Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) is a very significant complication affecting females with follicular depletion noted in early life.

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Background Classical galactosaemia (OMIM #230400) is a rare disorder of carbohydrate metabolism caused by deficiency of the galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase enzyme. The pathophysiology of the long-term complications, mainly cognitive, neurological and female fertility problems, remains poorly understood. Current clinical methods of biochemical monitoring lack precision and individualization with an identified need for improved biomarkers for this condition.

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Glycosylation is recognized as a Critical Quality Attribute for therapeutic glycoproteins such as monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins and therapeutic replacement enzymes. Hence, efficient and quantitative glycan analysis techniques have been increasingly important for their discovery, development and quality control. The aim of this review is to highlight relevant and recent advances in analytical technologies for characterization of biotherapeutic glycoproteins.

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Here we report evidence that new aminoquinoline N-glycan fluorescent labels interfere with the release of core α(1-6) fucose from N-glycans by bovine kidney α-l-fucosidase (BKF). BKF is a commonly employed exoglycosidase for core α(1-6) fucose determination. Molecular simulations of the bound and unbound Fuc-α(1-6)-GlcNAc, where GlcNAc is situated at the reducing end for all N-glycans, suggest that the reduced BKF activity may be due to a nonoptimal fit of the highest populated conformers in the BKF active binding site at room temperature.

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Glycosylation of the Fc region of IgG has a profound impact on the safety and clinical efficacy of therapeutic antibodies. While the biantennary complex-type oligosaccharide attached to Asn297 of the Fc is essential for antibody effector functions, fucose and outer-arm sugars attached to the core heptasaccharide that generate structural heterogeneity (glycoforms) exhibit unique biological activities. Hence, efficient and quantitative glycan analysis techniques have been increasingly important for the development and quality control of therapeutic antibodies, and glycan profiles of the Fc are recognized as critical quality attributes.

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The understanding of glycosylation alterations in health and disease has evolved significantly and glycans are considered to be relevant biomarker candidates. High-throughput analytical technologies capable of generating high-quality, large-scale glycoprofiling data are in high demand. Here, we describe an automated sample preparation workflow and analysis of N-linked glycans from plasma samples using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection on an ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) instrument.

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