Evaluation of oxytocin (OXT), endothelin-1 and nesfatin plasma concentrations in newly-diagnosed diabetic and non-diabetic patients with metabolic syndrome

Oxytocin (OXT) is implicated as a novel therapy of obesity-diabetes. Nesfatin is an anorexigenic adipokine linked to improve insulin sensitivity and dysglycemia in obese/T2DM mice, while endothelin-1 (ET-1) is an endothelium vasoconstrictor that is dysregulated in metabolic insulin resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate OXT, ET- 1, and nesfatin plasma levels and the correlation between these biomarkers and the various metabolic parameters in the human. In a cross-sectional study, MS-subjects attended the National Center for Diabetes Endocrinology and Genetics were enrolled based on their blood glucose levels into (82 MS-non-diabetic vs. 89 MS-pre/diabetic patients). Plasma OXT, ET-1 and nesfatin levels were measured by competitive binding and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). When MS-pre/T2DM patients were compared to MS-controls, plasma OXT concentrations (pg/mL) were significantly lower (P < 0.001) (mean ± SD; 1206.28 ± 507.68 vs. 2224 ± 871.22); nesfatin plasma levels (ng/mL) were significantly higher (P < 0.01) (1.04 ± 2.20 vs. 0.31 ± 0.25); while no differences were observed in ET-1 (pg/mL) plasma levels (P > 0.05) (4.21 ± 4.19 vs. 4.01 ± 3.51). In conclusion, the present study is the first one which demonstrates an increase in nesfatin concentrations in MS-pre/diabetic patients vs. MS-non-diabetic. Our study reported a decrease in OXT levels in MS-pre/T2DM compared to MS-control. Besides, ET-1 concentrations had no significant difference between non-diabetic and diabetic-MS patients, serum OXT concentrations correlated with several clinical parameters; this is suggestive of OXT as a pharmacologic agent that opposes weight gain and improves insulin resistance.