The relationship between insulin resistance and adiponectin gene expression in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease / 中华肝脏病杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the relationship between insulin resistance (IR) and adiponectin gene expression in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Subcutaneous (SC) and omental (OM) adipose tissues were obtained from 21 NAFLD patients with obesity (n=10) and nonobesity (n=11) and also from 24 subjects (without NAFLD) with obesity (n=11) and nonobesity (n=13) who served as controls. Adiponectin mRNA expression levels in subcutaneous and omental adipose tissues were measured using SYBR Green I quantitative real-time PCR. The levels of plasma adiponectin and insulin were measured with ELISA. IR was estimated using the homeostasis assessment (HOMA).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The scores of HOMA-IR levels of the NAFLD patients and the controls with obesity and nonobesity were 3.0+/-0.8, 2.8+/-0.9, 2.0+/-0.6, 1.2+/-0.5 respectively. The relative mRNA expression of adiponectin and blood adiponectin levels in NAFLD patients differed significantly from those of the controls. The HOMA-IR negatively correlated with the adiponectin mRNA expression levels of adipose tissues (r = -0.5) and blood adiponectin; it positively correlated with body mass index (r = 0.4), waist-hip-ratio (r = 0.4) and serum triglyceride (r = 0.3), but did not correlate with serum total cholesterol (r = 0.2).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>IR of NAFLD patients was linked to low adiponectin gene expression in their adipose tissues. This finding suggests that low adiponectin gene expression may play a role in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and NAFLD.</p>