From glycosylation to inflammation: insights from NMR-Derived GlycA and GlycB

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play a crucial role in increasing proteomic diversity. N-linked glycosylation acts as a key regulatory layer that influences protein stability, trafficking, circulation, and immune responses. Unlike conventional inflammatory biomarkers that measure individual proteins, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy identifies the combined signals GlycA and GlycB from glycoproteins, offering an overall view of systemic glycoprotein changes. These signals represent the N-glycosylation patterns of several abundant acute-phase proteins (APPs), giving detailed molecular insights. This review offers a detailed assessment of GlycA and GlycB as mechanistically grounded indicators of liver glycoprotein remodeling and systemic inflammation. GlycA mainly indicates the levels and structural complexity of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) and N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) residues linked to acute-phase glycoproteins and glycan branching. In contrast, GlycB reflects changes in terminal sialylation, which influences glycoprotein half-life, immune recognition via lectins, and inflammatory signaling. Collectively, these biomarkers combine measurements of hepatic APP production with variations in glycan structure, offering mechanistically anchored reporters of hepatic glycoprotein remodeling. We explore the enzymatic pathways responsible for N-glycan branching, fucosylation, and sialylation, as well as the roles of major APP scaffolds in the GlycA and GlycB resonances. We also highlight the emerging clinical significance of these signals across infectious, autoimmune, cardiovascular, metabolic, neurodegenerative, and cancer-related diseases. Rather than serving simply as markers of inflammation, GlycA and GlycB provide mechanistically interpretable readouts of cytokine-driven hepatic glycoprotein remodeling and systemic immune activation, supporting their application in disease risk stratification, longitudinal monitoring, therapeutic response assessment, and precision medicine.