28| © www.globalsciencepg.org Biolife | 2017 | Vol 5 | Issue 1 B I O L I F E R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Plasma beta2 microglobulin as a marker of progression in chronic Kidney disease patients Rania Mohamed Farag 1 *, Hanaa Mahmoud Ali 2 , Heba Seleem El-Shair 3 and Salah Saaed Naga 4 1,3,4 Nephrology Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Alexandria, Egypt 2 Clinical and Chemical Pathology, Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Alexandria, Egypt . Email: Angel2yes_1986@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a world-wide public health problem with adverse outcomes of kidney failure. Early diagnosis and treatment may delay or even prevent the onset of nephropathy in CKD. The measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the gold standard for the assessment of renal function. Beta 2 microglobulin has a renal handling compatible with that of an “ideal” marker of GFR. In fact, they are cleared by the plasma through free glomerular filtration, subsequent complete tubular resorption, and degradation inside tubular cells. As a consequence, their serum concentrations increase progressively with the reduction of GFR. The current study was designed to determine the values of this biomarker in patients with different levels of renal dysfunctions and find out the correlation between serum B2 Microglobulin, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and glomerular filtration rate in patients with different levels of renal dysfunction. In this study we found that the levels of serum B2 Microglobulin are highly associated with renal impairment in CKD stages, its concentrations significantly increased from stage 1 to 5 and that these levels progressively increase with decreasing GFR. Keywords: B2 Microglobulin, Serum creatinine, Creatinine clearance, Renal function. INTRODUCTION Early detection of renal disease and screening for early impairment of renal function could allow to slow the rate of progression of the impairment of renal function in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients (Middleton RJ et al., 2006) the measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is the gold standard for the assessment of renal function. GFR can be measured as the clearance of inulin or other suitable tracers, like 99mTc-DTPA. None of these methods is adequate for routine clinical use or for screening purposes (Prigent A et al., 2007) 24-hour creatinine clearance (24h-CCr) is frequently used for the evaluation of renal function. However, 24h-CCr lacks both precision and accuracy furthermore due to the necessity of a 24 hour urine collection, it is inadequate for screening studies (Donadio C et al., 1997) The major limitation of serum creatinine (SCr) is its low sensitivity as indicator of early impairment of GFR, since SCr overcomes the upper limit of reference range only in patients at stages ≥ 3b (GFR<45 mL/min/1.73 m2). Furthermore, SCr, besides the level of GFR, is influenced by the amount of muscle mass and, as a consequence, by age, gender and nutritional status of patients (Donadio C et al., 2001) Beta2 Microglobulin is known to be a surrogate marker for the concentration and removal of other middle-molecular-weight uremic toxins in dialysis patients. Predialysis serum Beta2 Microglobulin predicted mortality, with an 11% increase in mortality for each 10mg/l increase in Beta2 Microglobulin level-even after adjustment for years on dialysis and residual kidney function(Cheung AK et al.,2006)Beta2 Microglobulin is a non-glycosylated protein. In the system, it possesses the negative charge and it is a component of MHC class 1 molecules, which are present on almost all cells of the body except red blood cells (Aksun S Appakan et al.,2004) Beta 2 Microglobulin is released at constant rate in normal subjects, readily filters through the glomerular capillary wall, over 99.9% being reabsorbed and catabolised in proximal tubules with virtually no return of the filtered protein to the circulation, therefore theoretically it is a AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY & LIFE SCIENCES 5(1):28-32 ISSN (online): 2320-4257 www.biolifejournal.com How to Site This Article: Rania Mohamed Farag, Hanaa Mahmoud Ali, Heba Seleem El-Shair and Salah Saaed Naga (2017). Plasma beta2 microglobulin as a marker of progression in chronic Kidney disease patients. Biolife. 5(1), pp 28- 32. doi:10.17812/blj.2017.5105 Published online: 14 January, 2017