Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Spectrophotometric Screening for Potential Inhibitors of Cytosolic Glutathione S-Transferases
Published on: October 10, 2020
Increased serum gamma-glutamyltransferase activity in patients with metabolic syndrome
Hüseyin Bozbaş1, Aylin Yıldırır, Emir Karaçağlar
1Department of Cardiology, Medicine Faculty of Başkent University, Ankara, Turkey. mdhbozbas@yahoo.com
Objectives:
Accumulating data indicate that serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) activity represents a true marker of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and has prognostic importance. In this study, we sought to evaluate serum GGT activity in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS).
Study Design:
We enrolled 232 patients (mean age 60.4 years) from our outpatient cardiology clinic, 117 with and 115 without MetS (control group) as defined by the ATP-III criteria. The results of serum liver function tests including serum GGT and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were compared between the two groups.
Results:
The two groups were similar with regard to age, sex, smoking, and family history of coronary artery disease (p>0.05). The prevalences of hypertension and dyslipidemia were significantly higher in patients with MetS. Compared with controls, patients with MetS had significantly higher serum GGT [(median 21, interquartile range (16-33) vs. 19 (14-26) U/l; p=0.008] and C-reactive protein levels [6.2 (3.6-9.4) vs. 5.0 (3.1-7.0) U/l; p=0.044]. A high GGT activity (>40 U/l) was determined in 14.5% of the patients with MetS and in 4.4% of the control subjects (p=0.012). Serum GGT level showed significant correlations with MetS (r=0.24, p=0.001), CRP (r=0.20, p=0.003), triglyceride (r=0.18, p=0.006), HDL cholesterol (r=-0.19, p=0.004), aspartate aminotransferase (r=0.15, p=0.02), alanine aminotransferase (r=0.32, p=0.001), and alkaline phosphatase (r=0.16, p=0.01). This significant association continued only for MetS (β=-0.25, p=0.03), HDL cholesterol (β=-0.18, p=0.03), and alkaline phosphatase (β=0.17, p=0.01) in multivariate regression analysis.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that patients with MetS have higher serum GGT and CRP levels compared with controls. This increased GGT level might be a marker of increased oxidative stress and premature atherosclerosis.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Hyperglycemia
Phase II Reactions: Glutathione Conjugation and Mercapturic Acid Formation
Several distinctive characteristics distinguish glutathione conjugation from other phase II...
Glucose Transporters
Facilitated diffusion-glucose transporters (GLUTs) are encoded by the solute-linked carrier (SLC) family 2, subfamily A gene family, or SLC2A. The 14 GLUT protein members are distributed into three classes:
Overview of Carbohydrate Metabolism
Glucose transport into cells is facilitated by a family of transport proteins called GLUT (Glucose Transporters). GLUT4 is the primary glucose transporter for insulin-stimulated glucose...
Pharmacogenetics of Phase II Enzymes: N-acetyltransferase, Thiopurine S-methyltransferase, UDP-glucuronosyltransferase
Inborn Errors of Metabolism

