Relationship Between Electroneurographic Changes and Serum Ubiquitin Levels in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

Abstract

OBJECTIVE— The aim of the present study was to investigate any relationship between serum ubiquitin levels and electroneurographic changes in peripheral nerves for patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— The study involved 34 patients(19 men, 15 women; mean age 46 ± 13 years) with type 2 diabetes. Serum ubiquitin values were measured by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Measurement of nerve conduction velocity (NCV) was performed on three motor(median, tibial, and peroneal) and three sensory (median, ulnar, and sural)nerves. The value of motor compound muscle action potential (CMAP) was obtained from the sum of median, tibial, and peroneal motor nerve amplitudes,and sensory compound nerve action potential (CNAP) was computed as the sum of median and ulnar sensory nerve amplitudes. RESULTS— Patients with diabetes were divided into three groups: group 1 (n = 8) had normal electroneurography results, group 2 (n = 8) had slowed NCV, and group 3 (n = 18) had low values of motor CMAP and/or sensory CNAP as well as slowed NCV. Mean ubiquitin level in group 3 (20.4 ± 2.9 ng/dl) was significantly higher than that in group 1 (11.2 ± 1.1 ng/dl, t = 11.5, P <0.0001) and group 2 (13.2 ± 2.7 ng/dl, t = 5.9, P< 0.0001). Serum ubiquitin levels were inversely correlated with motor CMAP(r = -0.68) and sensory CNAP (r = -0.61) values. CONCLUSIONS— The results of this study indicate that there could be a relationship between the diminished amplitudes of axons of the peripheral nerve and the increase in serum ubiquitin levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. Further studies are required to confirm this relationship.

Isolation and Functional Analysis of Mouse UbA52 Gene and Its Relevance to Diabetic Nephropathy

“…Moreover, it seems that there is a systemic increase in gene transcription, because high blood levels of ubiquitin have been found, and they have inverse correlation with the decrease in the muscle action potential in diabetes mellitus (23). The above studies mainly address the pathobiology of ubiquitin, whereas the current observations describe the relevance of ubiquitin fusion protein, UbA52, in diabetes mellitus.…”

Systemic Ubiquitin Release After Blunt Trauma and Burns: Association With Injury Severity, Posttraumatic Complications, and Survival

“…Ub is a natural constituent of extracellular fluids, such as serum, plasma, or cerebrospinal fluid, and increased extracellular concentrations have been described in some diseases. 1,[7][8][9][10][11][12] However, no pathophysiologic role was attributed to extracellular Ub in these studies.…”

Ubiquitin Reduces Contusion Volume after Controlled Cortical Impact Injury in Rats

“…Ubiquitin is a normal constituent of serum, plasma and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (Manaka et al, 1992;Okada et al, 1993;Asseman et al, 1994). Elevated ubiquitin concentrations in serum, plasma and CSF have been described in several pathological conditions (Asseman et al, 1994;Okada 1993;Kudo et al, 1994;Kurimura et al, 1997;Takagi et al, 1999;Akarsu et al, 2001), including significantly increased serum concentrations in severely injured blunt trauma patients and increased CSF concentrations in patients with severe traumatic brain injuries (Majetschak et al, 2003(Majetschak et al, , 2005.…”