α2,3-Sialylation with Fucosylation Associated with More Severe Anti-MDA5 Positive Dermatomyositis Induced by Rapidly Progressive Interstitial Lung Disease

Dermatomyositis (DM) is a heterogeneous autoimmune disease associated with numerous myositis specific antibodies (MSAs) in which DM with anti-melanoma differentiation-associated gene 5-positive (MDA5 + DM) is a unique subtype of DM with higher risk of developing varying degrees of Interstitial lung disease (ILD). Glycosylation is a complex posttranslational modification of proteins associated with many autoimmune diseases. However, the association of total plasma N-glycome (TPNG) and DM, especially MDA5 + DM, is still unknown. TPNG of 94 DM patients and 168 controls were analyzed by mass spectrometry with in-house reliable quantitative method called Bionic Glycome method. Logistic regression with age and sex adjusted was used to reveal the aberrant glycosylation of DM and the association of TPNG and MDA5 + DM with or without rapidly progressive ILD (RPILD). The elastic net model was used to evaluate performance of glycans in distinguishing RPLID from non-RPILD, and survival analysis was analyzed with N-glycoslyation score by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. It was found that the plasma protein N-glycome in DM showed higher fucosylation and bisection, lower sialylation (α2,3- not α2,6-linked) and galactosylation than controls. In MDA5 + DM, more severe disease condition was associated with decreased sialylation (specifically α2,3-sialylation with fucosylation) while accompanying elevated H6N5S3 and H5N4FSx, decreased galactosylation and increased fucosylation and the complexity of N-glycans. Moreover, glycosylation traits have better discrimination ability to distinguish RPILD from non-RPILD with AUC 0.922 than clinical features and is MDA5-independent. Survival advantage accrued to MDA5 + DM with lower N-glycosylation score ( p = 3e-04). Our study reveals the aberrant glycosylation of DM for the first time and indicated that glycosylation is associated with disease severity caused by ILD in MDA5 + DM, which might be considered as the potential biomarker for early diagnosis of RPILD and survival evaluation of MDA5 + DM.