title: The promise of protein glycosylation for personalised medicine.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Complex diseases such as cancer are a consequence of numerous causes. State of the art personalised medicine approaches are mostly based on evaluating patients' individual genetic background. Despite the advances of genomics it fails to take individual dynamic influences into account that contribute to the individual and unique glycomic and glycoproteomic "configurations" of every living being.
  
  
  METHODS
  Glycomic and glycoproteomic-based personalised medicine diagnostics are still in their infancies, however some initial success stories indicate that these fields are highly promising to mediate novel early diagnosis and disease stratification markers, subsequently resulting in improved patient well-being and reduced treatment costs. In this review we not only summarise current protein glycosylation based examples that substantially improve or possess great potential for personalised medicine, but also describe current limitations as well as future perspectives and challenges associated with establishing protein glycosylation aspects for this purpose.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Many protein biomarkers currently in clinical use are glycoproteins, however, their glycosylation status is seldom evaluated in a clinical context. To date just few examples have already been successfully translated into clinical practice, making protein glycosylation a highly promising diagnostic target with humongous potential for personalised medicine.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is an urgent need for markers that enable the establishment of an individualised and optimised patient treatment at the earliest disease stage possible. The glycosylation status of a patient and/or specific marker proteins can provide important clues that result in improved patient management. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Glycans in personalised medicine" Guest Editor: Professor Gordan Lauc.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomolecular Systems, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, 14424 Potsdam, Germany; Institute for Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freie Universität Berlin, Arnimallee 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomolecular Systems, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, 14424 Potsdam, Germany. Electronic address: daniel.kolarich@mpikg.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kolarich
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism; D006023:Glycoproteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D006031:Glycosylation; D006801:Humans; D057285:Precision Medicine / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D006023:Glycoproteins
keywords: Cancer; Glycomics; Glycoproteomics; IgG; Personalised medicine; Serum tumour markers