title: Plasma levels of cell-free apoptotic DNA ladders and gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) in diabetic children.
abstract: The plasma levels of apoptotic DNA ladders (i.e., apoptosemia) and gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) in diabetic outpatients and rats were investigated. Apoptotic DNA ladders were detected in plasma from 26.8% of type 1 (T1) and 18.5% of type 2 (T2) diabetic children 1-20 years of age, 25.7% of hospitalized children and 35.7% of adult RA outpatients, but in only 3.5% of adult pre-op patients. Plasma from 7.7% of young streptozotocin-induced diabetic but not control rats contained apoptotic DNA ladders. Apoptosemia was detected more often in male T1 (31%) and T2 (30.8%) diabetic outpatients than in female T1 (20.8%) and T2 (15.4%) diabetic outpatients. GGT in apoptosemic plasma was significantly higher than in nonapoptosemic plasma from T1 (P = 0.001) but not T2 diabetic children. The highest amounts of apoptotic DNA were detected most often in diabetic children > or =14 years of age. In vitro study results suggest that cell-free apoptotic DNA ladders appear prior to an increase in GGT activity in serum from human blood incubated at 37 degrees C. The results suggest that 24.7% of plasma samples from diabetic children contained apoptotic DNA ladders, the incidence and amounts of apoptotic DNA ladders were higher in the older diabetic children, and GGT was elevated in apoptosemic T1 diabetic children (P = 0.01). The results indicate that "silent" apoptosemia occurs in T1 and T2 diabetic children and suggest elevated GGT in diabetic children could be due to release from apoptotic cells.
authors: Department of Ophthalmology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, Louisiana 71130-3932, USA. mlangf@lsuhsc.edu
authors: Marlyn P
authors: MP
authors: Langford
authors: Thomas B
authors: TB
authors: Redens
authors: Norman R
authors: NR
authors: Harris
authors: Seungjun
authors: S
authors: Lee
authors: Sushil K
authors: SK
authors: Jain
authors: Sudha
authors: S
authors: Reddy
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: McVie
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004247:DNA / Q000097:blood* / Q000378:metabolism; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000097:blood* / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase / Q000097:blood* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004247:DNA; D005723:gamma-Glutamyltransferase