Endocrine Abstracts

Purpose: Diabetes is one of the most common metabolic disease which has got many peptide hormones have in its etiology. Phoenixin (PNX), a recently discovered neuropeptide appears to have a role in energy management and metabolism through regulating insulin neogenesis and secretion, according to research. There is no research has been studied on the association between diabetes and PNX levels. The aim of the study was to see if there was a relation between PNX levels in the serum and saliva of patients with diabetes and HbA1c levels.

Materials and methods: A total of 100 participants were included in the study, with 80 patients divided into four groups based on HbA1c [Group 1: 5.7-6.4 % (n=20), Group 2: 6.5-8.4 % (n=20), Group 3: 8.5-9.9 % (n=20), and Group 4: 10 % and above (n=20)] and a control group of 20 healthy individuals. After at least 8 hours of fasting, venous serum and saliva samples were obtained from the patient and control groups., and HbA1c were measured. The levels of phoenixin in serum and saliva were determined by using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The statistical analyses were performed with the SPSS 22 package program and also one-way Anova test and Pearson’s correlation test were used. The significance value was taken as p≤0.05.

Result: When PNX serum levels were analyzed, it was shown that the prediabetic group (Group 1 (5.7-6.4 %)) had statistically higher levels than type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (p≤0.05). PNX salivary levels were found to be significantly higher than serum levels in the control and type 2 diabetes mellitus groups.

Conclusion: The PNX molecule is a neuropeptide that may be found in saliva and serum. It’s thought that the prediabetic groups’ higher serum PNX level is attributable to the effect of hyperinsulinemia, and that when overt diabetes occurs, it will be detected at a lower level in the serum related to relative insulin insufficiency. This leads us to believe that PNX is increased in order to control the higher glucose levels in the prediabetic group. Saliva PNX is expected to be favoured over serum PNX in future investigations on PNX metabolic pathways, as serum PNX is an invasive procedure.

Key words: Diabetes mellitus, peptide molecules, phoenixin, Hb1Ac