Association between circulating big endothelin-1 and noncalcified or mixed coronary atherosclerotic plaques

Abstract

Background: Noncalcified plaques (NCPs) and mixed plaques (MPs) are considered as the high-risk coronary plaques. Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is a vasoactive peptide and shows a high expression in vulnerable plaque. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the bigET-1, the precursor of ET-1, and NCPs/MPs in a Chinese population.

Methods and results: A total of 513 patients with chest pain and suspected coronary artery disease were collected and divided into three groups with no plaques, calcified plaques, or NCPs/MPs according to the characteristics of all the plaques. It demonstrated that NCPs/MPs were associated with elevated bigET-1 (P < 0.001). Moreover, the proportion of NCPs/MPs was significantly increased from 43.3% in bigET-1 tertile 1 to 61.0% in tertile 3 group (P = 0.001). Multiple logistic regression analysis further showed that bigET-1 was an independent predictor for the presence of NCPs/MPs (odds ratio = 1.858; 95% confidence interval: 1.017-3.394; P = 0.044).

Conclusion: The bigET-1 could be an independent predictor for the presence of NCPs/MPs.

Fig. 1

The correlation of bigET-1 with BUN, CREA, hsCRP, TC, HDL-C, LDL-C TG and URIC. BigET-1 level was positively correlated with BUN, CREA and hsCRP (a-c) but inversely correlated with TC, HDL-C and LDL-C (d-f) and not correlated with TG and URIC (g,h). BigET-1, Big Endothelin-1; BUN, blood urea nitrogen; CREA, creatinine; hsCRP, high sensitivity C-reactive protein; TC, total cholesterol; HDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; LDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; TG, triglycerides; URIC, uric acid.