Abstract :
Protein O-GlcNAcylation plays a major role in the development of type 2 diabetes and its complications. The objective of our current study is to analyze the differences in gene expression of enzymes involved in the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway (HBP) by the method of non-invasive assessment. We evaluated the changes of genes expression of HBP enzymes among type 2 diabetics and non-diabetics cheek swab samples. Patients from a free dental clinic consented to take part in the study. The desired variables were obtained from the patients i.e., demographic details, medical and past family history. We collected buccal epithelial cells that were processed and frozen. For assessment of expression of genes, we used real-time PCR and enzyme primers. The relative amount of gene expression was determined by Peri Primer software and normalized to beta actin mRNA. The comparison t-test was applied to assess the means of two groups, which analyzed the differences in the gene expression among the non-diabetic and diabetic patients. Out of total 82 patients, majority of patients had no any prior history of diabetes while 15 were diabetic. The results showed changes in genetic expression of O-GlcNAc transferase (p<0.05). A significant difference were observed in gene expression between two groups i.e. diabetic and non-diabetic with lower power due to small number of diabetic groups.
