Glycobiomarkers for precise diagnosis of liver diseases

Glycobiomarkers are valuable for disease diagnostics, monitoring and prognostics with greater sensitivity and specificity than the currently used biomarkers. For liver diseases diagnostics, Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA)-positive human Mac-2-binding protein, fucosylated haptoglobin, vitronectin, antithrombin III, WFA-positive colony stimulating factor 1 receptor and fucosylated hemopexin were recently reported to be promising glycobiomarkers, including fucosylated serum paraoxonase 1 and fucosylated GP73 in our previous studies. Large-scale validation and clinical trials of most glycobiomarkers are urgently needed for crossing the boundary from the laboratory into routine clinical use.