Abstract
Introduction: Neuraminidase (NA) activity and sialic acid are demonstrated as inflammatory markers.
Objectives: This study was designed to investigate the association of serum sialic acid and neuraminidase activity in rats with diabetes, diabetic nephropathy and renal injury.
Materials and Methods: Sixty-eight male rats were included in this study and randomly assigned to nephropathy, diabetic, diabetic nephropathy, and the control groups. Nephropathy rats group underwent injection of glycerol 50% in femur muscle. Control group was injected 2.5 cc saline in their femur and they did not intake anything by their mouth after 48 hours. Diabetic rats group was injected with a single dose injection of streptozotocin (STZ) in the tail. Control group for this mentioned group was injected with 1 mL saline in their tail. Diabetic nephropathy cases were injected STZ prepared in saline solution for 4 consecutive days (after an overnight fast) and 10 controls were injected with 1 mL saline. Serum prepared from venous blood of rats, serum sialic acid and neuraminic acid were measured.
Results: Serum sialic acid and neuraminic acid in all trial groups were significantly higher than those of the control group (P < 0.001). The value of serum sialic acid and neuraminic acid was significantly higher in the diabetic nephropathy group compared to nephropathy group respectively (P < 0.01and P < 0.05 respectively). In addition, serum sialic acid was significantly higher in the diabetic nephropathy group compared to diabetic group (P < 0.01).
Conclusion: The main finding of this study is that elevated serum neuraminic acid and sialic acid were strongly related to the presence of diabetic nephropathy in our study groups. Further research is required on the prognosis of these two inflammatory markers in diabetes and nephropathy situation.