Matrix metalloproteinases in the development of ischemic stroke in the patients with or without diabetes mellitus type II

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) are a family of zinc-dependent endopeptidases, capable of degrading all the molecular components of extracellular matrix. A class of metalloproteinases–gelatinases, which includes gelatinase A or MMP-2 (72 kDa) and gelatinase B or MMP-9 (92 kDa) has been shown to play critical roles in a number of acute and chronic pathological processes, in particular, cardiovascular diseases. For these reasons gelatinasesobtained a great interest as potential non-invasive biomarkers in providing useful clinical information in stroke diagnosis and therapy. In present study we have analyzed the content of MMP-9 and MMP-2 in serum samples of patients with ischemic stroke alone and ischemic stroke complicated by diabetes mellitus type II, as well as the enzymatic activities presented in blood serum. It has been established that the acute phase of ischemic stroke is accompanied by the significant change of the content of investigated metalloproteinases in the blood serum. The obtained results demonstrated thatblood serum content of MMP-2 is significantly higher than content of MMP-9.The changes of the content of MMP-2 and MMP-9 were more pronounced in the group of patients with ischemic stroke and diabetes mellitus type 2 comparing with the results of patients with ischemic stroke alone.For analysis of forms of gelatinases the gelatine zymographytechnique was applied. This is a sensitive and simplemethodwhich allows to measure the relative amounts of active and inactive enzymes in body fluids and tissue extracts. The serum samples patients with stroke alone and complicated by diabetescontained two prominent gelatinolyticbands corresponding to monomeric proMMP-9 (92 kDa), proMMP-2 (72 kDa)active MMP-9 (85 kDa), MMP-2 (67 kDa)and some additional bands migrating above 100 kDa. By contrast, the healthy serum samplesdisplayed only the 92 and 72 kDa proforms.