Abstract
Context Leptin, an adipocyte-derived signalling molecule that plays important role in the regulation of energy balance, body weight and glucose metabolism. Objective To evaluate leptin mRNA expression as a predictive biomarker in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Materials and methods To detect the expression patterns of leptin mRNA, a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was performed on samples collected from 71 T2DM patients and 32 non-diabetic controls. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was utilised to assess the discriminatory power of leptin mRNA. Results Leptin mRNA levels were reduced significantly in diabetic patients compared with non-diabetic controls (P <= .0001). The ROC curve analysis showed a significant association between leptin mRNA levels and T2DM (P <= .0001), with a high area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.95 (95% CI: 0.89-0.98). The analysis also showed that fasting blood glucose and glycosylated haemoglobin had high AUC values of 0.88 and 0.97 with (95% CI: 0.80-0.93 and 0.92-0.99), respectively. Conclusion This study shows that the reduced leptin mRNA expression level is significantly associated with T2DM and could be used as a predictive and diagnostic biomarker for T2DM.