Disease-specific markers for the mucopolysaccharidoses

Abstract

Unprecedented demands are now placed on clinicians for early diagnosis as we enter into an era of advancing treatment opportunities for the mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS). Biochemical monitoring of any therapeutic avenue will also be prerequisite. To this end, we aimed to identify a range of urinary oligosaccharides that could be used to identify and characterize patients with MPS. We analyzed 94 urine samples from 68 patients with MPS and 26 control individuals for oligosaccharides derived from glycosaminoglycans using electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry. The oligosaccharide profile for each patient group was compared with that of the control group. The Mann-Whitney U test was use..