Circulating resistin is elevated in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and is associated with steatosis, portal inflammation, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis scores.

AIM: We aimed to investigate the association between serum levels of resistin and the biochemical and histological features of patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) to determine the usefulness of this relationship in the clinical practice. METHODS: A total of 97 patients with NAFLD and 66 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were recruited. Detailed epidemiological, anthropometric and laboratory data were recorded. Serum levels of resistin were measured with ELISA. RESULTS: Serum levels of resistin were significantly higher in patients with NAFLD (32.10±10.0 ng/mL and 26.57±13.60 ng/mL, respectively) compared with healthy controls (P=0.003). Serum resistin levels were associated with AST, ALT, HOMA-IR, histological steatosis, portal inflammation and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) scores. The serum levels of resistin were significantly higher in patients with definite NASH compared to patients with simple steatosis (29±13 and 20±10 ng/mL, respectively, P=0.03). There was no association between the serum resistin levels and the liver fibrosis stages. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that resistin levels are elevated in patients with NAFLD and could discriminate simple steatosis from definite NASH.

XPD and hOGG1 gene polymorphisms in reperfusion oxidative stress.

Knee replacement surgery is an ischemia/reperfusion model, as it uses tourniquet applied to the knee area to stop the blood flow during the operation. Fifty patients that were undergoing elective arthroscopic knee surgery were included in our study. Human 8-oxoguanine glycosylase 1 (hOGG1) is an enzyme to repair specific DNA lesions and a good marker of hydroxyl radical damage to DNA. XPD is another DNA repair gene. We investigated the effect of hOGG1 (Ser326Cys) and XPD (Lys751Gln) polymorphisms on the oxidative stress level after reperfusion. To evaluate oxidative stress conditions, we measured 8-hydroxyguanosine and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels. Polymorphism analyses were done by PCR-RFLP; serum 8-hydroxyguanosine and MDA levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunoassay. There were no significant differences between serum MDA and 8-hydroxyguanosine levels in the samples taken before and after tourniquet application; none of these parameters were related with hOGG1 genotypes. However, we observed increased MDA levels after tourniquet application in M allele carriers for the XPD gene; this could mean that M allele carriers are more prone to DNA damage due to oxidative activity.