C-reactive protein and coronary heart disease: all said--is not it?

Abstract

C-reactive protein (CRP) and coronary heart disease (CHD) have been the subject of intensive investigations over the last decades. Epidemiological studies have shown an association between moderately elevated CRP levels and incident CHD whereas genetic studies have shown that polymorphisms associated with elevated CRP levels do not increase the risk of ischemic vascular disease, suggesting that CRP might be a bystander rather than a causal factor in the progress of atherosclerosis. Beside all those epidemiological and genetic studies, the experimental investigations also try to reveal the role of CRP in the progress of atherosclerosis. This review will highlight the complex results of genomic, epidemiological, and experimental studies on CRP and will show why further studies investigating the relationship between CRP and atherosclerosis might be needed.

Figure 1

The picture shows the C-reactive protein as it circulates in the human blood stream after response to inflammatory stimuli. The five subunits are forming a disc-shaped pentamer around a central pore. (Picture was generated with information from the RCSB Protein Data Bank by using PyMOL software.)