Abstract
Background: Patients with diabetes are susceptible to accelerated vascular damage associated with increased circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) from endothelial tissue. Adiponectin is a cytokine with anti-inflammatory and insulin-sensitivity properties decreased in the plasma of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). This study aimed to assess the content of receptor 1 for adiponectin (AdipoR1) in both total and endothelial EVs from plasma samples of T2D patients and normoglycemic subjects.
Methods: Insulin and soluble vascular endothelial molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) in plasma were measured by ELISA, and we used flow cytometry to determine the content of AdipoR1, CD106, and CD144 in plasma-derived EVs from 14 patients with diabetes and 34 normoglycemic subjects.
Results: Compared to normoglycemic subjects, the percentage of vesicles CD144+ (p = 0.0041) and CD106+ (p = 0.0011) were higher in patients with diabetes. Compared to T2D patients, the percentage and medium fluorescence intensity from the total EVs/AdipoR1+ (p = 0.041 and p = 0.0220) were higher in normoglycemic subjects. Plasmatic sVCAM-1 was negatively correlated with plasma adiponectin (b = - 14.415, p < 0.0001), along with the percentage of EVs/AdipoR1+ (b = - 8.209, p = 0.001); and correlated positively with the percentage of EVs/CD144+ (b = 6.768, p < 0.0001) and HOMA-IR (b = 67.919, p < 0.0001).
Conclusions: Our results show that the content of AdipoR1 in plasma-derived VEs is lower in patients with T2D than in subjects with normoglycemic. AdipoR1 content in EVs is negatively associated with the endothelial damage marker sVCAM-1 level in plasma and with the HOMA-IR value.