N-glycome profile levels relate to silent brain infarcts in a cohort of hypertensives

Background-silent brain infarcts (sbis) are highly prevalent in the aged population and relate to the occurrence of further stroke and dementia. serum n-glycome levels have been previously associated with aging and they might be related as well to the presence of sbis and age-related white matter hyperintensities. methods and results-we determined the serum n-glycome profile in a cohort study comprising 972 subjects and evaluated the relationship between n-glycome levels and the presence and number of sbis and with age-related white matter hyperintensities grades,assessed by brain magnetic resonance imaging. decreasing concentrations of bigalacto core-α-1,6-fucosylated biantennary glycan and increasing concentrations of branching α-1,3-fucosylated triantennary glycan remained as independent predictors of sbis (odds ratio 0.4,95% ci 0.3-0.7 and odds ratio 1.8,95% ci 1-3.2,respectively),after controlling for the presence of age and classic vascular risk factors. a similar pattern was found to be related to an increasing number of sbis and white matter hyperintensities grade. conclusions-n-glycome levels might be potentially useful as biomarkers for the presence of silent cerebrovascular disease. © 2015 the authors.