N. Y. Mytsyk^1,2, N. V. Olkhovych^1,2, N. G. Gorovenko^2,3

¹National Children’s Specialized Hospital Ohmatdyt, Kyiv, Ukraine;
²SI Institute of Genetic and Regenerative Medicine, NAMS of Ukraine, Kyiv;
³P. L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, Kyiv, Ukraine;
e-mail: mytcyk_nat@ukr.net

Oligosaccharides are a class of polymeric carbohydrates, which are constituents of a glycoside portion of glycoprotein and glycolipid molecules. The lysosomal hydrolase dysfunction due to lysosomal storage disorders results in partial or complete failure of degradation of some glycoproteins and glycolipids, causing the accumulation of specific undegraded substrates in the lysosomes of cells, the formation of the great number of oligosaccharide chains and their increased excretion with urine. Our work was aimed at detailed study of the specificities of interpreting the results of thin-layer chromatography (TLC) of urine oligosaccharides in healthy persons of different age groups with the purpose of further application of these data while differentiating the norm and pathology in the course of primary selective screening of lysosomal storage disorders. The results obtained demonstrated that TLC plates for the majority of healthy persons had insignificant excretion of a number of oligosaccharides (from monosaccharides to hexasaccharides) with R_lac > 0.15, which can be characterized as physiological oligosacchariduria, conditioned by the metabolism specificities in lysosomes. Therefore while interpreting the urine samples of patients with the suspected lysosomal storage disorder it is diagnostically reasonable to examine the TLC plates for the presence of both oligosaccharide groups, absent in the samples of healthy persons, and all the fractions with R_lac < 0.15.

Keywords: lysosomal storage disorders, oligosaccharides, oligosacchariduria, TLC