Potential biomarkers found by protein profiling may provide insight for the macrovascular pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus

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.