Associations of Serum and Saliva Resistin Levels with RETN Gene Polymorphism –420 C/G (rs1862513) among Iraqis’ Type II Diabetes

Abstract Background: In all societies in the world, type II diabetes (T2DM) has become a health challenge. Resistin is one of the adipokines associated with weight gain and T2DM. Objectives: The aim of the study is to find the correlation of resistin levels in the serum and saliva of the T2DM group and the non-diabetic (ND) control group. Materials and Methods: The two groups involved in our study were from Baghdad, Iraq. Resistin concentration was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Genotype analysis was carried out using the restriction fragments length polymorphism technique. Results: The results of our study showed that both glucose and resistin were elevated in the serum and saliva of T2DM compared to ND. In addition, the results of the correlation analysis showed a strong positive relationship for resistin levels between serum and saliva, and a moderate positive relationship for glucose levels in the ND group. The genotype (CC) is the most frequent in the T2DM group, which indicates that it is a risk factor for susceptibility to T2DM. No significant differences were shown for resistin concentrations among the three genotypes. No correlation was shown between minor allele (C) and resistin concentration in the T2DM group. Conclusions: Our findings supported the possibility of adopting saliva as substitute for serum in the detection of T2DM biomarkers in healthy group, with the need for more studies related to the possibility of replacing blood with saliva in the case of T2DM patients. In addition, our results for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1862513 showed the need for further studies that might show the relationship of this SNP with the expression of resistin.