Study on Diabetic microvascular complications and CAD using Mass spectroscopy based proteomics and metabolomics.

Diabetes mellitus is a complex metabolic disorder that is associated with insulin resistance, impaired insulin signaling, b-cell dysfunction, abnormal glucose levels, altered lipid metabolism, subclinical inflammation and increased oxidative stress . Diabetes mellitus has become a major global health problem with almost 415 million people affected in 2015, and a projected figure of 642 million by 2040 (International Diabetes Federation). Type 2 diabetes mellitus leads to long-term vascular complications, including micro- and macrovascular complications, such as peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy, nephropathy, CAD  with decreased quality of life and increased mortality . There is no cure once the disease is diagnosed, but early treatment at the subclinical stage can prevent or at least halt disease progression. Thus, it is of critical importance to diagnose these complications at the earliest to reduce the morbidity and mortality.

Metabolomics is a systems biology approach that provides global metabolic information about biological samples. It has been widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes . Many studies have shown elevated plasma levels of branched-chain amino acids and their derivatives, aromatic amino acids, and a-hydroxybutyrate before the manifestation of type 2 diabetes mellitus . However, studies of diabetic complications are scarce.

‘Proteome’ is used to describe the entire protein complement of a system and ‘proteomics’ is the study of this complement. Proteins are the principal mediators of every cellular process, and the proteome of an organism is far more complex than its genome. Consequently, it is more informative. The genome remains stable throughout life and the genome isolated from one cell type is (for the most part) identical to that isolated from another. Thus, the genome cannot provide information regarding the impact of environmental and other stimuli on a particular organism or cell. The high throughput mass spectrometry based proteomics has helped in unveiling the identification and mapping of signaling networks associated with the post-translational modifications (PTMs) along with changes in the expression of proteins

spectrometry based proteomics has helped in unveiling the identification and mapping of signaling networks associated with the post-translational modifications (PTMs) along with changes in the expression of proteins

There are limited proteomics-metabolomics based studies to date in the field of diabetes,especially with regard to complications in India. Hence there is a need for such studies to find out  biomarkers  which can help us in diagnosing the diabetic complications early so that appropriate preventive and treatment strategies can be instituted.

The purpose of the study is to identify the  marker using the quantitative proteomic approaches which includes label and label free approaches and to find out how the signaling cascade mechanisms, metabolites and post translational mechanisms responsible for the conversion of diabetes to diabetic complications stage.