Serum LncRNA PANDAR may Act as a Novel Serum Biomarker of Diabetic Nephropathy in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

BACKGROUND The current study aims to investigate the expression and significance of lncRNA PANDAR in the serum of patients with type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and diabetic nephropathy (DN). METHODS The expression of PANDAR in 77 T2DM patients, 60 DN patients, and 60 healthy controls was detected by RT-PCR. Pearson's correlation assay was carried out to analyze the correlation between serum lncRNA PANDAR and clinical indicators. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis was carried out to analyze the diagnostic value of PANDAR in T2DM and DN patients. RESULTS The expression of PANDAR in T2DM and DN patients was significantly higher than that in the control group. Moreover, the expression of PANDAR in DN patients with massive proteinuria was significantly higher than that in DN patients with microalbuminuria. Further study showed that the expression of PANDAR was positively correlated with the level of proteinuria (r = 0.690, p < 0.001), and negatively correlated with the glomerular filtration rate (r = -0.780, p < 0.001). In T2DM and DN patients, the area under ROC curve (AUC) of PANDAR as serum marker was 0.861 (95% CI: 0.786 - 0.935, p < 0.001), between DN patients and T2DM patients, while the AUC of PANDAR as a marker in diabetic nephropathy was 0.914 (95% CI: 0.828 - 0.980, p < 0.001) between DN patients and healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS In summary, the high expression of PANDAR is related to the development of DN in T2DM patients, and it is expected to be a biomarker for predicting the prognosis of DN patients.