Is Serum Vasohibin-1 Level Associated with the Development of Kidney Disease in Diabetic Patients?

Objective: Glomerular neoangiogenesis contributes to increased glomerular filtration rate in patients with diabetic kidney disease. Vasohibin-1 is a neoangiogenesis inhibitor. We aimed to evaluate serum vasohibin-1 levels of diabetic patients with and without diabetic kidney disease. Methods: A total of 105 diabetic patients and 35 healthy controls were included in the study. Diabetic patients with esti-mated glomerular filtration rate <60 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and/or those who had persistent proteinuria (>200 mg/g) measured by urinary protein/creatinine ratio were diagnosed as diabetic kidney disease patients if they do not have any other known kidney diseases or findings suggesting another kidney disease. Serum creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate, pro-tein/creatinine ratio, and vasohibin-1 levels were recorded. Results: Systolic blood pressure and protein/creatinine ratio were higher in diabetic patients than in healthy controls, and age, sex, and estimated glomerular filtration rate were similar. Diabetic patients have slightly lower but statistically nonsig-nificant serum vasohibin-1 levels than healthy controls. Patients with diabetic kidney disease had higher protein/creatinine ratio, lower estimated glomerular filtration rate, and long-standing diabetes compared to diabetic patients without kidney disease. Serum vasohibin-1 levels were similar between patients with and without diabetic kidney disease. There was no correlation between serum vasohibin-1 levels and estimated glomerular filtration rate or protein/creatinine ratio. In logistic regression analysis, vasohibin-1 was not associated with diabetic kidney disease. Conclusion: We showed that diabetic patients have slightly lower vasohibin-1 levels than healthy subjects but there was no difference between diabetic patients with and without kidney disease in terms of serum vasohibin levels. Because vaso-hibin-1 exhibits its antiangiogenic properties by acting via autocrine-paracrine pathways, local vasohibin activity at the tissue level may be more important than the circulating levels.