Abstract
Background. The objective of this study was to compare the levels of total (TSA) and free (FSA) sialic acid in acute and chronic liver diseases. Materials and Methods. The serum TSA and FSA levels were determined in 278 patients suffering from acute and chronic liver diseases of different etiologies. TSA was estimated by enzymatic method and FSA by the thiobarbituric method modified by Skoza and Mohos. Results. There were no significant differences in the serum TSA concentration between liver diseases of different etiologies, although in most of the liver diseases the mean TSA level was significantly lower than that in the control group. In contrast to TSA, the concentration of FSA appears to differ between liver diseases. In toxic hepatitis it was higher than that in nonalcoholic cirrhosis. However, neither of them differs between alcoholic and nonalcoholic cirrhosis or between liver tumors and tumors with cirrhosis. Conclusions. We conclude that the changes in concentrations of TSA and FSA during the same liver diseases indicate significant disturbances in sialylation of serum glycoproteins.
Highlights
Most of the serum proteins are glycoproteins, in which glycans are terminated with sialic acid residues [1,2,3]
Because the most common disturbances in glycosylation rely on the increase of enzymatic activity that cuts off sialic acid residues from serum glycoproteins and/or on the decrease of enzymatic activity that binds sugar residues to oligosaccharide chains, these processes may result in increase of free sialic acid (FSA) concentration in the blood [6, 8]
The patients were divided into subgroups according to the diagnosis of liver diseases: 54 had alcoholic cirrhosis (AC), 34 nonalcoholic cirrhosis (NAC), 23 chronic nonviral hepatitis (CH), 32 toxic hepatitis (TH), 20 chronic viral hepatitis C (HCV), 17 chronic viral hepatitis B (HBV), autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), acute hepatitis B (AHB), primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), 14 fatty liver (FL), 24 primary liver cancer (HCC), and 15 primary liver cancer and cirrhosis (HCC + C)
Summary
Most of the serum proteins are glycoproteins, in which glycans are terminated with sialic acid residues [1,2,3]. The changes in the concentration of sialylated glycoproteins in the blood have been reported [4, 5]. These changes should affect the concentration of total sialic acid (TSA). The objective of this study was to compare the levels of total (TSA) and free (FSA) sialic acid in acute and chronic liver diseases. The serum TSA and FSA levels were determined in 278 patients suffering from acute and chronic liver diseases of different etiologies. We conclude that the changes in concentrations of TSA and FSA during the same liver diseases indicate significant disturbances in sialylation of serum glycoproteins
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