The correlation of serum musclin with diabetic nephropathy.

OBJECTIVE: Musclin is a recently found myokine involved in the process of glucose metabolism. The purpose of the present investigation is to evaluate the relationship between serum musclin levels and diabetic nephropathy (DN).

METHODS: The current investigation included 175 (T2DM) cases and 62 controls. T2DM patients were divided into three subgroups: normoalbuminuria (DN0), microalbuminuria (DN1), and macroalbuminuria (DN2) on the basis of the values of urine albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR).

RESULTS: T2DM group displayed higher serum musclin than the controls. Serum musclin were remarkably elevated in DN2 subgroup compared with DN0 and DN1 subgroups. In addition, elevated serum musclin was observed in DN1 subgroup than in the DN0 subgroup. Serum musclin was correlated with an increased risk of having T2DM and DN using a logistic regression model. Linear regression analysis showed that serum musclin was negatively related with gender, and positively related with body mass index, systolic blood pressure, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and ACR.

CONCLUSION: Serum musclin increases with the progressed stages of DN. Serum musclin is associated with renal function parameters and ACR.