Soluble receptor for advanced glycation end-products (sRAGE) in childhood obesity: association with gene expression of RAGE and cardiometabolic markers

Introduction: advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) interact with the receptor for AGEs (RAGE). Full-length RAGE is associated with intracellular signal transduction, and soluble-RAGE (sRAGE) lacks the transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains, acting as a competitive inhibitor of AGEs-RAGE binding. sRAGE levels in healthy children are associated with cell surface expression of RAGE. However, the expression of RAGE has not been explored in childhood obesity.Objective: the study aim was to evaluate the sRAGE levels and the gene expression of RAGE in children and its association with cardiometabolic markers.Methods: this is a cross-sectional study with 6-11-year children, 20 with overweight and 20 with obesity. Anthropometric measurements included waist circumference (cm) (WC), neck circumference (NC), weight (kg), fat mass (%), trunk fat (kg), muscular mass (kg), height (cm), and body mass index (BMI) (kg/m(2)). Blood samples following an overnight fast were collected to measure glucose (mg/dl) and lipid profile with colorimetric methods. sRAGE was determined in serum using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Quantitative reverse transcription (RT-qPCR) was performed to analyze RAGE transcripts in peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated by Ficoll (R)-Hypaque.Results: we found higher RAGE (p = 0.0315) and lower sRAGE (p = 0.0305) levels in the obesity group. sRAGE level showed a negative correlation with RAGE (r =-0.35) and BMI (r =-0.24), and positive with HDL-cholesterol (r = 0.29). Regression analysis suggests that HDL-C and RAGE levels are predictors of sRAGE levels.Conclusions: expression of RAGE is associated with lower sRAGE levels in childhood obesity. Moreover, obese children show higher cardiometabolic risk markers, and a positively associated with sRAGE.