The study subjects consisted of 100 individuals, 50 each from T2DM patients and healthy sex/age matched controls. Cell proliferation by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and ROS measurement by 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCFDA) staining were performed at different time periods (24, 48, 72 h). COX1 mRNA expression was checked by relative quantification method after real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).
The MTT assay showed that cell viability was significantly higher at 48 h (P < 0.05). ROS production was found to be lowest at 24 h by DCFDA staining. ROS levels were raised in T2DM patients as compared to controls. The quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed that the COX1 expression was higher in T2DM patients as compared to healthy controls although not significant (P > 0.05).
Although COX1 is known to be a “housekeeping” gene, our study showed that its expression can be correlated with the disease condition and be used as a marker. However, further studies are required in more number of samples from other ethnic populations to confirm the findings.