Diabetes 57:1966-1970, 2008 DOI: 10.2337/db08-0009 © 2008 by the American Diabetes Association
Serum Heat Shock Protein 27 and Diabetes Complications in the EURODIAB Prospective Complications StudyA Novel Circulating Marker for Diabetic Neuropathy
1 Department of Internal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy Corresponding author: Gabriella Gruden, gabriella.gruden{at}unito.it
OBJECTIVE—Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is a member of the small heat shock protein family of proteins. HSP27 expression is enhanced in target tissues of diabetic microvascular complications, and changes in circulating serum HSP27 levels (sHSP27) have been reported in patients with macrovascular disease. We investigated whether sHSP27 levels were associated with micro- and macrovascular complications in type 1 diabetic patients. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—A cross-sectional, nested, case-control study from the EURODIAB Prospective Complications Study of 531 type 1 diabetic patients was performed. Case subjects (n = 363) were defined as those with one or more complications of diabetes; control subjects (n = 168) were defined as those with no evidence of any complication. We measured sHSP27 levels and investigated their associations with diabetes complications. RESULTS—Mean sHSP27 levels were significantly higher in case subjects with distal symmetrical polyneuropathy (DSP) than in control subjects, even after adjustment for age and albumin excretion rate (AER) (785.9 vs. 574.7 pg/ml, P = 0.03). In logistic regression analysis, sHSP27 levels in the upper quartile were associated with a twofold increased odds ratio (OR) of DSP, independently of conventional risk factors, markers of inflammation, and AER (OR 2.41 [95% CI 1.11–5.24]). CONCLUSIONS—In this large cohort of type 1 diabetic subjects, we found an independent association between sHSP27 and DSP. This suggests that sHSP27 levels may be a novel marker for diabetic neuropathy.
Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27), a member of the small heat shock protein family of proteins, is a highly conserved peptide of Recent studies in experimental diabetes have shown HSP27 overexpression in glomeruli (3), dorsal root ganglia (4,5), retina (6), and the area adjacent to atherosclerotic plaque (7), indicating HSP27 induction in target tissues of diabetes complications. HSP27 is also released into circulation (8). A pilot study has shown reduced plasma HSP27 levels in patients with carotid stenosis (9), but in a more recent study, HSP27 levels were increased in patients with acute coronary syndromes (7). However, no large study is yet available on circulating HSP27 in vascular disease. Type 1 diabetes is associated with a greatly increased risk of vascular complications that cannot be completely accounted for by conventional risk factors. The aim of the present study was to assess whether high serum HSP27 (sHSP27) levels increased odds ratios (ORs) of micro- and macrovascular complications in a nested case-control sample of type 1 diabetic individuals from the EURODIAB Prospective Complications Study.
The EURODIAB Prospective Complications Study (1997–1999) is a follow-up of the EURODIAB Type 1 Diabetes Complications Study (1989–1991), which was designed to explore risk factors for diabetes complications in 3,250 randomly selected people with type 1 diabetes, aged 15–60 years, attending 31 diabetes centers in 16 European countries (10,11).
A cross-sectional, nested, case-control study was designed at the 1997–1999 follow-up examination (12–15). The response rate at follow-up examination was 57.8% (16). Case subjects were selected based on the greatest complication burden possible in order to provide sufficient numbers for subgroup analyses. Thus, case subjects were defined as those with cardiovascular disease, proliferative retinopathy, or micro- or macroalbuminuria at follow-up. Control subjects were selected based on being completely free of complications. This design allowed the comparison of individuals with single or multiple complications with individuals free of complications, according to the study question, as efficiently as possible. Applying these criteria, this yielded 363 case and 168 control subjects with full data on complications and samples available for analysis. The sample size provides a power of 95 and 80% (
Patient evaluation for the presence of cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, smoking, cholesterol, triglycerides, and A1C) is described elsewhere (12–15). Retinopathy was graded according to the EURODIAB protocol (17). Albumin excretion rate (AER), assessed on two 24-h urine collections by the immunoturbidimetric method, was categorized as normoalbuminuria (<20 µg/min), microalbuminuria (20–200 µg/min), and macroalbuminuria (
Soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule (sVCAM)-1, soluble E-selectin (sE-selectin), interleukin (IL)-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-
Statistical analyses.
The study population (n = 531) had a mean age of 39.6 years, a mean diabetes duration of 21.5 years, and an equal proportion of men and women. Case subjects with vascular complications had a more adverse risk factor profile than control subjects (Table 1). Of the 363 case subjects, nephropathy was present in 206 (22.6% micro- and 34.3% macroalbuminuria), retinopathy in 292 (background 39.1% and proliferative 41.3%), DSP in 205 (56.5%), and autonomic neuropathy in 118 (27.6%). Most people, however, had more than one complication; indeed, 187 (51.5%) individuals had both AER 20 µg/min and retinopathy, 128 (35.3%) had both AER 20 µg/min and DSP, and 123 (33.9%) had AER 20 µg/min, DSP, and retinopathy. CVD was present in 146 subjects (40.2%), all of whom also had at least one microvascular complication, apart from 12 individuals who had CVD only.
HSP27 was measurable in all 531 samples, with a right-skewed distribution of values (Table 1). sHSP27 levels were not significantly different in case and control subjects, even after adjustment for age (670.9 vs. 548.8 pg/ml, P = 0.08). With respect to control subjects, however, we found significantly greater age-adjusted HSP27 levels in case subjects with DSP (P = 0.002) and in case subjects with micro-/macroalbuminuria (P = 0.03). Although sHSP27 levels were also slightly higher in case subjects with retinopathy (P = 0.06), this was mainly due to the confounding association with AER, as values became similar after further adjustment for AER (P = 0.57). On the contrary, the difference between case subjects with DSP and control subjects was significant, even after further adjustment for AER (785.9 vs. 574.7 pg/ml, P = 0.03). No difference was found between case subjects with CVD and control subjects.
We then performed logistic regression analyses to assess whether higher values of HSP27 conferred an increased OR of having any complication, independently of main risk factors. Models performed in all subjects and separately for each complication showed a tendency toward a negative confounding effect of both age and diabetes duration (increasing ORs from model 1 to model 2) and a positive confounding effect of A1C, hypertension, smoking, and TNF-
HSP27 values in the upper quartile (>1,135 pg/ml) conferred a 38% increased OR (95% CI 0.77–2.49) of any complications compared with HSP27 values in the lower quartiles ( 1,135 pg/ml). Final models, performed separately for each complication, showed that higher HSP27 values were associated with a more than twofold increased OR of DSP, which was statistically significant (OR 2.45 [95% CI 1.20–5.03]), even after further adjustment for AER values (2.41 [1.11–5.24]). ORs for other complications were increased in the upper versus lowers quartiles, but they did not reach statistical significance (Table 2). Study center did not contribute significantly to the final model and did not modify estimated ORs.
In this cross-sectional sample of type 1 diabetic patients from the EURODIAB Prospective Complications Study, we have provided the first evidence of an independent association between sHSP27 levels and DSP. Mean sHSP27 levels were significantly higher in case subjects with DSP than in control subjects, even after adjustment for age and AER. Furthermore, in logistic regression analysis, higher circulating HSP27 levels conferred a twofold increased OR of DSP, independently of conventional risk factors, markers of inflammation, and AER. The lack of circulating markers for DSP represents an important limit of clinical research in this field; therefore, our findings may be of potential clinical relevance. Availability of a surrogate marker of DSP, which can be easily and noninvasively obtained, may facilitate diagnosis, measurement of progression, and assessment of therapeutic interventions. The rise in circulating HSP27 expression in patients with DSP may result from neuronal overexpression. Consistent with this hypothesis, studies in experimental diabetes have shown HSP27 induction in the sensory neurons of the dorsal root ganglia (4,5). Intracellular HSP27, a key survival factor for neurons, plays an important role in axonal regeneration (20), and mutations of the HSPB1 gene encoding for HSP27 cause inherited distal peripheral neuropathies, such as hereditary distal motor neuropathy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2 (21). The mechanism of HSP27 neuroprotection is unclear, but preservation of the cytoskeletal stability and both chaperone-like and anti-apoptotic activities have been implicated (22). In diabetic patients with DSP, overexpression of HSP27 may thus be aimed to counteract the neurological damage caused by the diabetic milieu. On the other hand, HSP27 release can also contribute to the neuronal damage, as anti-HSP27 autoantibodies, which are produced in response to extracellular HSP27 exposure, can induce neuronal apoptosis (23). There are certain limitations to our study. First, this is a cross-sectional study, hence restricting our ability to assess temporal relationships between sHSP27 levels and microvascular complications and to identify causal biological mechanisms underlying this association. However, no data on HSP27 in large groups of type 1 diabetic patients exist; therefore, this study may serve as a reasonable starting point to explore the role of this molecule in type 1 diabetes. Second, the number of control subjects was lower than the overall number of case subjects, thus reducing the power of analyses; comparisons between control subjects and case subjects with single complications allowed a more favorable case-to-control ratio, but multiple comparisons within the same case-control study base might have caused significant results due to chance. Third, although serum samples were adequately stored, the possibility of protein degradation cannot be excluded; however, random misclassification would have biased our estimates downward, without affecting significant associations. Unlike previous studies, a key strength here is the ability to account for confounding by other risk factors and complications, and the large sample size provides sufficient power for these analyses. In addition, our patients were from a representative sample of people with type 1 diabetes across Europe, and our results are therefore likely to be generalizable. In conclusion, this is the first study measuring sHSP27 in a large group of subjects, and the results provide evidence that sHSP27 levels are independently associated with DSP in type 1 diabetic patients. Further studies are required to determine causal relationships and elucidate underlying mechanisms.
This work was supported by the "Compagnia di San Paolo," the Piedmont Region, and the University of Turin.
Published ahead of print at http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org on 4 April 2008. Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit,and the work is not altered. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ for details. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. Received for publication January 4, 2008 and accepted in revised form March 28, 2008
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