Affiliations: School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist
University, Hong Kong, China | Ciphergen Biosystems Inc., Fremont, CA, USA | School of Chinese Medicine and Health Care, The
Chinese University – Tung Wah Community College, Hong Kong, China | Department of Biochemistry, The Chinese University of
Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China
Abstract: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an alarming threat to health of mankind,
yet its pathogenesis is unclear. The purpose of this study was to find
potential biomarkers to serve as indicators for the pathogenesis of DM in a
time course manner. Based on our previous findings that oxidative stress
occurred at week 8, aorta lysate and sera of 102 streptozotocin (STZ)-induced
diabetic and 85 control male Sprague-Dawley rats were obtained at the 4th, 8th
and 12th week after STZ injection. The protein profiles were studied employing
surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry
technology in attomole sensitivity range. In the aorta, a multiple biomarker
panel was discovered at the 4th week. At the 8th week, 4 biomarkers were found,
while at the 12th week, 3 biomarkers were identified. In the sera, a triplet of
3 peaks and 2 biomarkers were all discovered to have 100% classification
accuracy rate to differentiate the DM and control groups at all time intervals.
Besides, 2 biomarkers were also found to have high classification value at week
12. Comparing the aorta and sera from DM and non-DM rats, a bundle of potential
biomarkers with significant changes in peak intensities and high classification
values were found. Two of the serum biomarkers matched with islet amyloid
polypeptide and resistin in the SWISS-PROT knowledgebase. Validation has been
conducted using immunoassay kits. These potential biomarkers may provide
valuable insight on the pathogenesis of DM and macrovascular complications.
Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, protein profiling, surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass
spectrometry, macrovascular complications
