Abstract

BACKGROUND
Vascular complications of diabetic patients are common and are known as the major cause of death. Hyperglycemia has been supposed to be the leading cause of vascular complications by unknown mechanisms. In recent reports, hyperglycemia stimulated the expression of leukocyte-endothelial adhesion molecules in the endothelial cells, and increased plasma concentrations of their soluble forms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of plasma concentrations of soluble P-selectin(sP-selectin), soluble E-selectin(sE-selectin), and soluble VCAM-1(sVCAM-1) in diabetic patients with microvascular complications as markers of vascular endothelial damage. METHODS: In this study, plasma levels of sP-selection, sE-selectin and sVCAM-1 were determined by ELISA in 39 diabetic patients and 25 normal conirols. RESULTS: The concentrations of sP-selectin, sE-selectin, and sVCAM-1 in diabetic group were significantly higher than those in control group. The concentrations of sP-selectin and sE-selectin decreased sigruficantly after contol of hyperglycemia in diabetic group, but sVCAM-1 level was not altered by treatment. In diabetic group with microvascular complications, the concentrations of sP-selectin and sE-selectin significantly were elevated as compared with the diabetic group without microvascular complication, but the concentration of sVCAM-l was not different between the two groups. In diabetic group, the levels of sP-selectin, sE-selcctin, and sVCAM-1 were not correlated with the concentration of C-peptide, HbA1, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol. There was no difference between control group and diabetic group in terms of age and sex. There were not any differences of sP-selectin, sE-selectin, and sVCAM-1 concentration according to the duration of diabetes and the presence of hypertension. CONCLUSION: Hyperglycemia might stimulated the expression of P-selectin, E-selectin, and VCAM-1 in the endothelial cells and increased the plasma levels of their soluble forms. sP-selectin and sE-selectin could be used as indicators of ongoing vascular dysfunction in diabetes as well as a dynamic surrogate marker for the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions.

• Keywords: P-selectin;E-selectin;VCAM-1;Microangiopathy;Atherosclelosis;Diabetes mellitus;