Importance of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGE) in Human Disease and Diagnosis

Abstract

Advanced Glycation End (AGE) is a product of non-enzymatic reaction between reducing sugars of carbonyls and proteins. AGE accumulates with age. It may be derived from methylglyoxal (MG), glyoxal, and 3-deoxyglucosone (3DG) groups. AGEs are chemically heterogeneous group of compounds with only 25 AGE structures fully characterized. Among these Nε-carboxymethyl-lysine (CML) is the simplest and best characterized AGE. It is involved in the pathophysiological conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis and aging disease like Alzheimer disease. So, it is important to measure the AGE level in human diseases. Skin autofluorescence (AF) is a noninvasive measurement of AGE accumulation. In this review, different methods of determination of AGE level in human will be discussed because of standard method of measurement of AGE have not been established yet. It is suggested that AGE may play an important in assessing diagnosis, prognosis and prevention of some high risk disease in near future.