RAGE: A potential therapeutic target during FGF1 treatment of diabetes-mediated liver injury.

As a serious metabolic disease, diabetes causes series of complications that seriously endanger human health. The liver is a key organ for metabolizing glucose and lipids, which substantially contributes to the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Exogenous fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1) has a great potential for the treatment of diabetes. Receptor of advanced glycation end products (RAGE) is a receptor for advanced glycation end products that involved in the development of diabetes-triggered complications. Previous study has demonstrated that FGF1 significantly ameliorates diabetes-mediated liver damage (DMLD). However, whether RAGE is involved in this process is still unknown. In this study, we intraperitoneally injected db/db mice with 0.5 mg/kg FGF1. We confirmed that FGF1 treatment not only significantly ameliorates diabetes-induced elevated apoptosis in the liver, but also attenuates diabetes-induced inflammation, then contributes to ameliorate liver dysfunction. Moreover, we found that diabetes triggers the elevated RAGE in hepatocytes, and FGF1 treatment blocks it, suggesting that RAGE may be a key target during FGF1 treatment of diabetes-induced liver injury. Thus, we further confirmed the role of RAGE in FGF1 treatment of AML12 cells under high glucose condition. We found that D-ribose, a RAGE agonist, reverses the protective role of FGF1 in AML12 cells. These findings suggest that FGF1 ameliorates diabetes-induced hepatocyte apoptosis and elevated inflammation via suppressing RAGE pathway. These results suggest that RAGE may be a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of DMLD.