# The Role of Deoxysphingolipids in Peripheral Neuropathy

> **NIH VA I01** · RALPH H JOHNSON VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · —

## Abstract

There are an estimated 20 million people in the United States who have some form of peripheral neuropathy.
Peripheral neuropathy also is the most prevalent complication of both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and affects
approximately 60 to 70 percent of patients with diabetes. Clinically, diabetic neuropathy exhibits a pronounced
similarity to the neuropathy of patients with hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy type 1 (HSAN1).
HSAN1 patients exhibit elevated plasma levels of a newly identified sphingolipid class, deoxysphingolipids (DSL)
and DSL were shown to have pronounced neurotoxic effects on cultured sensory neurons. We have shown that
plasma levels of deoxy-C24-ceramide, one species of DSL, are elevated in neuropathy patients with type 1
diabetes. Furthermore, we now provide compelling new evidence that both VLDL with DSL content supple-
mented in vitro, and VLDL from a diabetic patient with neuropathy with DSL levels increased in vivo, each can
modify the DSL composition of membranes from human Schwann cells and alter matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)
metabolism in the cell. It is not known if the increases in plasma DSL concentration we observed in patients with
neuropathy precede the onset of neuropathy. It also is not known if the increase in DSL level in plasma from
patients with neuropathy is localized to a specific lipoprotein class, nor how DSL in lipoproteins might alter neural
cell metabolism and contribute to neuropathy. Our overarching hypothesis is that plasma sphingolipid levels are
altered in patients with complications that commonly associate with diabetes mellitus compared to sphingolipid
concentrations in patients without complications. More specific to this application, we hypothesize that the
increased plasma levels of DSL which we observed in neuropathy patients with type 1 diabetes precede the
onset of neuropathy. We further hypothesize that the increase in plasma DSL level a) is localized primarily to
VLDL, and b) alters matrix metalloproteinase metabolism in human Schwann cells. To test these hypotheses we
will: Aim 1 - Determine if plasma DSL concentrations measured at the end of the DCCT (1993) in patients with
type 1 diabetes can predict the development of incident peripheral neuropathy cases through EDIC year 13/14
(2007). We will determine the concentrations of DSL in previously collected, banked plasma samples collected
at the end of the DCCT from 1,375 patients with type 1 diabetes and determine their ability to predict the
development of incident peripheral neuropathy up to 14 years later (EDIC year 13/14). Additionally, we will
conduct a cross-sectional analysis of these data to determine whether plasma DSL levels determined at DCCT
closeout are elevated in patients with prevalent neuropathy compared to DSL levels in patients without
neuropathy when neuropathy is defined using the more stringent DCCT definition compared to the disease
criteria employed in our original investigations. Aim 2 - Determine if the...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10046269
- **Project number:** 5I01BX003913-04
- **Recipient organization:** RALPH H JOHNSON VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Yan Huang
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-10-01 → 2021-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10046269

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10046269, The Role of Deoxysphingolipids in Peripheral Neuropathy (5I01BX003913-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10046269. Licensed CC0.

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