Abstract: It has been reported that retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) is associated to adiposity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Meanwhile, circulating RBP4 levels are also affected by renal function. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether serum levels of RBP4 are primarily associated with different stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD) or type 2 diabetes, if there is more potential relevance between RBP4 and renal replacement therapy. The serum levels of RBP4 were assessed by commercial competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit in 212 patients with the CKD stages 1—5 and in 24 healthy controls, while its correlation with clinical and metabolic parameters was analyzed. The serum level of RBP4 had a strong correlation with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) (P < 0.001). Stratified by eGFR and treatment, no more differences in RBP4 serum concentration were detected between type 2 diabetic and non-diabetic subjects [CKD stages 1—5, non-dialysis (ND), hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD); P >0.05 for all]. The elevation of RBP4 become higher in HD than in PD and ND in CKD5 patients (P = 0.008 and P = 0.04, respectively), while there was no significant difference between PD and ND groups. Multivariate linear regression analysis demonstrated three independent predictors of eGFR (β = −0.676, P < 0.001), C-reactive protein (CRP) (β = −0.573, P < 0.001) and creatine (β = 0.509, P = 0.024) in the study population. The study results demonstrated that the serum level of RBP4 was negatively related to the eGFR, whether diabetes mellitus (DM) affected the blood concentration of RBP4 or not. And the serum level of RBP4 exhibited significant difference in different renal replacement therapies. © 2016, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Key words: chronic kidney disease (CKD); diabetes mellitus (DM); renal replacement therapy; retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4)