Researchers at Sant Pau i del IMIM have discovered a new biomarker, the sLRP1 receptor, which predicts the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in people who currently have no symptoms. This biomarker provides novel and complementary information to what is already known today.
Cardiovascular diseases continue to be the main cause of death in Spain. In addition, it is estimated that every year some 125,000 people present with an acute myocardial infarction. For this reason, researchers are working to identify some blood parameters (biomarkers) to identify people most at risk of these diseases.
The study, recently published in the journal Atherosclerosis, and led by Dr. Vicenta Llorente Cortés and Dr. David de Gonzalo of the Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute (IIB-Sant Pau) and the IIBB-CSIC, and Dr. Roberto Elosua and Dr. Jaume Marrugat of the Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques (IMIM), all members of the cardiovascular disease cybercv.
The sLRP1 is a biomarker that plays an important role in the onset and progression of atherosclerosis, which is the mechanism that explains the most serious diseases of the heart. Previous studies by the IIB-Sant Pau Lipids and Cardiovascular Pathology research group had already indicated that sLRP1 was associated with an acceleration of the atherosclerosis process, with a greater accumulation of cholesterol and inflammation in the wall of the arteries, but this is the first evidence that also predicts the appearance of clinical events such as myocardial infarction. “The question we wanted to answer was whether the determination of a new blood biomarker (sLRP1) could predict cardiovascular risk at 10 years,” explains Dr. de Gonzalo.
As Dr. Llorente Cortés points out, “this discovery confirms the relevance and applicability of sLRP1 in clinical practice to predict well in advance the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in people who currently have no symptoms”.
Dr. Elosua indicates that “for each increase in one unit of sLRP1 the risk of presenting with heart disease increases by 40%”. In addition, as Dr. Marrugat points out, “this increase is independent of other risk factors such as cholesterol, tobacco, high blood pressure and diabetes. So this biomarker provides novel and complementary information to what we already know today.
The study was carried out within the framework of the REGICOR study (Registre Gironí del Cor) which has been following for more than 15 years more than 11,000 people in the province of Girona.
This project is financed with grants from the Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation in Health (PERIS, SLT002/16/00088) of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Fundació La Marató TV3 and the CIBER Cardiovascular Diseases of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III.
Reference article
de Gonzalo-Calvo D, Elosua R, Vea A, Subirana I, Sayols-Baixeras S, Marrugat J, Llorente-Cortés V. Soluble low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 as a biomarker of coronary risk: Predictive capacity and association with clinical events. Atherosclerosis. 2019 Jun 16;287:93-99. doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2019.06.904. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID:31247347.
