Kári Arnarson, Valborg Guðmundsdóttir, Finnur Eiríksson, Margrét Thorsteinsdóttir and Vilmundur Guðnason
Introduction
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) stands as the primary cause of death globally, constituting approximately 45% of all non-communicable disease mortality. For most individuals who later experience a myocardial infarction (MI), the 10-year risk calculated by traditional risk assessment tools is initially deemed to be low-to-moderate risk. There is therefore a pressing clinical necessity for innovative biomarkers that can indicate the early signal for biological risk factors associated with MI events, particularly for patients not identified by conventional CVD risk prediction tools.
Methods
Serum samples from 150 incident MI case-control matched pairs (age 58.7 ± 7.23 years; mean follow-up of 13 years) were analyzed with a targeted proteomics mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) platform. The analysis workflow utilizes a panel of one synthetic light peptide and matching heavy peptide for each of the 270 proteins quantified. Paired logistic regression analysis between proteins and incident MI was investigated for the full follow-up and 5 years, and the linear correlation between proteins and known clinical factors used in traditional risk prediction models.
Results
The UPLC-MS/MS targeted proteomics assay yielded results for 164 proteins in 293 individuals. A total of 28 proteins were found to have a significant association with incident MI, 3 proteins of which also had a significant association to incident MI within 5 years. Further significant associations between protein clusters and known clinical risk factors were found.
Conclusion
These results indicate that circulating proteins provide valuable information about imminent risk of MI.
