RAGE

  When blood sugar concentrations are elevated, humans run the risk of glucose binding to proteins in the blood and causing the irreversible formation of advanced glycation end products (AGE). Once formed, AGEs can bind to their receptor (RAGE) and stimulate inflammation and oxidative stress. This pathological signaling can be stopped by pieces of the RAGE protein that break off and form a soluble version called sRAGE. These soluble versions of RAGE are good because they can bind excess AGEs and prevent their effects. A new study published in the American Journal of Physiology -…

Figure 1 showing RAGE (aka: Ager) expression only in mammals from Sessa et al., PLOS ONE. 9(1): e86903, 2014. RAGE stands for "receptor for advanced glycation end-products", also known as "AGER", and new research shows that it first appeared in mammals (Sessa et al., 2014). Despite the name, the receptor also binds other signaling molecules such as HMGB1, S100 proteins, beta-amyloid, phosphatidylserine, among others (Xie et al., 2013). RAGE is reportedly involved in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, as well as liver and renal…