Serum AGE-elastin derived peptides among diabetic children.

The purpose of the study was to measure advanced glycated end products (AGE) of elastin in human serum. In the present study, we adapted an ELISA technique for the determination of AGE-elastin-derived peptides (AGE-EDP) in human sera of healthy and diabetic subjects. This test makes use of human aortic elastin hydrolyzed by a chemical procedure (alpha-elastin) and AGE-Hemocyanin. Polyclonal sera from rabbit against AGE-Hemocyanin and from sheep against alpha-elastin were obtained and their specificity was tested via direct and competitive ELISA. Sera of 60 Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetic children and 28 healthy subjects were tested. The patients with vascular complications showed significant higher levels of age, diabetes duration, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), dose, EDP and AGE-EDP than those without vascular complications. AGE-EDP concentrations of all diabetics correlated with triglycerides (r=0.19; p=0.04). The correlation was found between AGE-EDP and DBP in the subgroup of patients with microalbuminuria+retinopathy (r=0.94; p=0.0006). The subgroup of patients with microalbuminuria (n=19) showed correlation with age (r=0.24; p=0.008), AGE-EDP (r=0.65; p=0.0001), EDP (r=0.51; p=0.0001) and SBP (r=0.33; p=0.0003). Further studies are necessary to elucidate the relationship between the serum level of AGE-elastin degradation products and diabetic vascular complications. The measurement of non-invasive markers of elastin synthesis and degradation may be useful in monitoring development and therapeutic intervention in diabetic vascular complications.