Background: The relationship of IgG glycosylation with diabetes and diabetic nephropathy has been reported, while its role in diabetic retinopathy (DR) remained unclear. We aimed to investigate and validate the association of IgG glycosylation with DR.
Methods: We analyzed the IgG N-linked glycosylation profile and identified the specific panel in the discovery population using binary logistics model. Findings were validated in the replication population. The discriminative capacity of IgG glycosylation panel was explored by ROC analysis using cross validation and Brier score. Multiple sensitive analyses were performed on the whole population.
Results: 2 IgG glycans (GP15, GP20) and 2 derived traits (IGP32, IGP54) were identified and validated significantly associated with DR (P<0.05), and the adjusted OR were 0.676, 0.671, 1.770, 0.681 in combined population, respectively. The glycosylation panel achieved an average AUC of 0.67 and 0.60 in the discovery and replication population. The association was independent of blood pressure, glucose and lipids, thus improving the ROC and Brier score when the panel added. In addition, the results remained consistent when the controls were re-defined and 1:3 re-matched.
Conclusions: IgG glycosylation profile reflecting a pro-inflammatory status were associated with DR. The variation of IgG glycome deserves more attention in the aggravation of diabetes and the underlying mechanism warrants further research.