PO-07 Racial Differences in Circulating Csrage and Alternatively Spliced Esrage in Healthy Adolescents: Relation with Aortic Stiffness

Background Binding of ligands to the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) triggers pro-inflammatory/oxidant signaling in the vascular wall. Increased circulating soluble forms of RAGE (sRAGE) are associated with decreased vascular risk and may be protective by acting as a decoy to prevent ligand binding to full-length RAGE. Sheddases, such as matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP 9) proteolytically cleave cell surface receptors including RAGE, forming cleaved soluble RAGE (csRAGE). However, sRAGE also includes endogenous secretory RAGE (esRAGE), an isoform of RAGE without receptor function derived from alternative splicing of RAGE pre-mRNA. sRAGE is lower in African-American (AA) compared with Caucasian adults and is hypothesized to contribute to elevated arterial stiffening and vascular risk in AAs. Indeed, we have previously demonstrated that sRAGE (1567±68.9vs. 955±101.1 pg/mL, p