Abstract:
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is one among the four diseases declared as an epidemic according to WHO Global Report on Diabetes, 2016. This disease of complex pathophysiology has multiple etiology. Among other factors, dysregulated levels of adipokines in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus also suggest the implication and importance of adipokines in these conditions. Adipose tissue has emerged as a vital organ in fuel homeostasis. Adipsin is an important adipokine that induces insulin secretion in beta cells and triacylglycerol synthesis from free fatty acids through a downstream component C3a. Adipsin has been observed to be down regulated in obese and diabetic patients/mice models with beta cell failure. Administration of adipsin in such organisms ameliorates hyperglycemic condition, revealing the therapeutic potential of adipsin.
The present study aimed to analyze the relative expression and histone acetylation status of adipsin gene in type 2 diabetic patients. Polymorphism of adipsin gene was also investigated for association with disease population through ARMS-PCR in 50 blood samples from both type 2 diabetic patients and controls. Quantitative analysis of adipsin in 11 type 2 diabetic patients and 11 healthy controls was done followed by comparison of expression between the two groups. The possible involvement of an epigenetic factor, histone acetylation, in the down regulation of adipsin was analyzed in 5 type 2 diabetic patients and 5 healthy controls through Chromatin-Immuno-Precipitation (ChIP). The tag SNP investigated, rs1683564, showed statistically significant association with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This could be used as a marker for scoring the risk of diabetes. Our results showed higher expression of adipsin in diabetic samples compared to healthy controls which might be attributed to the high demand of insulin due to persistent hyperglycemia. The difference in expression was statistically insignificant. Since the expression was not reduced in diabetic samples, histone acetylation status of adipsin gene was no different in diabetic and control groups.
