Validity of Serum Toll-Like Receptor-2 (TLR-2) in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

The role of the Toll Like Receptor (TLR)/innate immune activation in type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is somewhat controversial. The aims of this study were to determine the serum levels of TLR-2 in apparently healthy subjects’ sera and T1DM patients and its efficacy as a specific diagnostic marker. Thirty T1DM patients and ten apparently healthy subjects were included. Serum level of TLR-2 was detected by sandwich ELISA technique. Results demonsrate that the mean age is 40.1±16.4 and 27.2±7.5 years for T1DM cases and healthy group respectively. The data of the present study revealed a simple difference between groups regarding ages, since there was no significant differences in serum TLR-2 mean value between these groups (p=0.35); therefore this study dealt with these  groups as T1DM group in general regarding serum TLR-2.  The difference in the mean of serum TLR was slightly higher in T1DM group (1.46)   in comparable with healthy controls (1.07). The small area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (ROC area=0.61) which is not significantly different from the 0.5 ROC area related with an equivocal test. Between each male and female within the cases there was no obvious or statistically significant difference (p< 0.85) in mean serum TLR with 1.49, 1.42 respectively.

Albeit, not significant statistically, this study demonstrated a noticeable increase in serum TLR among DM cases compared to healthy controls. One reason behind such observation is that there is a decline in count of cells that carry the TLR receptors among diabetics, which will ameliorate the increase in TLR related with the disease. Furthermore, the contrasting roles of inflammation in T1DM may thus be accounted the capacity of innate pathways to initiate the both immunity by B cell damage and immunoregulation.