An association of serum vistafin level and number of circulating endothelial progenitor cells in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients.

Background: The decreased number and impaired functions of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) may associate with cardiovascular disease (CV) including atherosclerosis. However, the role of vistafin in regulation of angiogenic EPC subset maturation in T2DM patients without known atherosclerosis is still not fully understood.

The Aim Of The Study: To investigate an association of serum vistafin level and number of circulating EPCs in T2DM patients beyond known CV disease.

Methods: This case-control observational investigation was evolved 54 subjects with T2DM and 35 healthy volunteers. The flow cytometry was used for predictably distinguishing cell subsets, which depend on expression of CD45, CD34, CD14, Tie-2, and VEGFR2. Biomarkers were measured at baseline of the study.

Results: All T2DM patients were divided depending median of vistafin level (5.88ng/mL) in to two cohorts with low vistafin level (<5.88ng/mL; n=29) and high vistafin level (≥5.88ng/mL; n=25) respectively. Logistic regression analysis has shown that visfatin, hs-CRP, age and BMI were the best variables in the prediction of EPC number labeled as CD14CD309 and CD14CD309Tie cells. After adjustment of the model to age and BMI elevated visfatin level remained the best predictor for both CD14CD309 and CD14CD309Tie EPCs (OR 0.92, 95% CI: 0.88-0.95; P=0.001 and OR 0.90, 95% CI: 0.87-0.96; P=0.001 respectively).

Conclusion: We found that elevated level of vistafin was an independent predictor for declined numerous of non-classical EPCs labeled as CD14CD309 and CD14CD309Tie, whereas CD34 subsets of EPCs did not associate with vistafin level in T2DM individuals.