Association of soluble receptor for advanced glycation end-product with increasing central aortic stiffness in hypertensive patients

OBJECTIVES: In humans, a secreted isoform of (soluble) receptor for advanced glycation end-products (sRAGE) may act as a decoy receptor of advanced glycation end-product. The level of sRAGE may reflect the activity of cell surface receptor for advanced glycation end-product. But there has been no study that has demonstrated the association of sRAGE with central aortic stiffness. Here, we studied the relation of plasma sRAGE level and arterial pulse wave velocity in hypertensive patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 415 patients were enrolled (men; 57.6%, mean age; 53.2±10.8 years), with 25.8% (n=107) of these being diabetic. All patients underwent pulse wave velocity (PWV) and blood sampling of sRAGE, high-sensitive C-reactive protein, and other serologic markers. RESULTS: The log-transformed sRAGE was significantly correlated with the marker of central aortic stiffness heart to femoral PWV (hfPWV; r=0.165, P=0.001). It also showed a significant correlation with hfPWV in patients with diabetes (r=0.301, P=0.002), but not in patients without diabetes (r=0.115, P=0.055). By multiple linear regression analysis, the log-transformed sRAGE was independently correlated with hfPWV (β=0.13, P=0.004) when controlled for other variables. CONCLUSIONS: This study has demonstrated, for the first time, that serum sRAGE level was independently correlated with a marker of central aortic stiffness. This result suggests the potential role of RAGE in the pathogenesis of aortic stiffness.