Lijing Huo,1,2 Xuexin Liu,2 Nan Ding,2 Hairui Zhang,1 Shiyu Hou,1 Jintian He,1 Baohua Zhao1 

1College of Life Science, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Medical Laboratory, Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Jintian He; Baohua Zhao, College of Life Science, Hebei Normal University, No. 20 Road East of 2nd Ring South, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, 050024, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 311 80786666 ; +86 311 80787777, Email 576477418@qq.com; zhaobaohua@mail.hebtu.edu.cn

Objective: This study investigates the potential of plasma Gasdermin D (GSDMD) as a novel biomarker for early diagnosis and monitoring of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Methods: We conducted a comparative analysis of clinical indicators among newly diagnosed diabetes patients, those with prediabetes, and healthy controls, finding significantly elevated plasma GSDMD levels in the diabetes group (P < 0.05).
Results: Correlation analyses revealed that GSDMD levels were positively associated with inflammatory markers and indicators of insulin resistance, while negatively correlating with HOMA-β (P < 0.001). Logistic regression analysis identified GSDMD, IL-6, and CRP as independent risk factors for type 2 diabetes (P < 0.001). The area under the ROC curve for plasma GSDMD was 0.988, indicating superior diagnostic capability compared to traditional markers like CRP (0.902) and IL-6 (0.857). With a threshold of 17.67 pg/mL, plasma GSDMD exhibited a sensitivity of 93.9% and specificity of 98.0%.
Conclusion: These findings suggest that plasma GSDMD not only reflects early metabolic abnormalities associated with type 2 diabetes but also holds promise as a therapeutic target to mitigate inflammatory responses and improve insulin resistance. Further large-scale clinical studies are warranted to validate its diagnostic utility and enhance clinical applications.

Keywords: biomarker discovery, gasdermin D, early diagnosis, type 2 diabetes mellitus, plasma biomarker, prediabetes