IDENTIFICATION OF PLASMATIC MARKERS PREDICTIVE OF LEFT VENTRICULAR RECOVERY IN RECENT-ONSET DILATED CARDIOMYOPATHY USING NON-TARGETED PROTEOMIC APPROACH: PILOT RESULTS (YOUNG INVESTIGATOR AWARD COMPETITION)
Introduction: Recent onset dilated cardiomyopathy (RODCM) represents a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge - some patients achieve complete recovery of left ventricular (LV) function during treatment, while the others not. No easily accessible clinical or laboratory parameters exist to enable prognostic stratification. Untargeted proteomics of plasma may yield such novel protein markers. The study aimed to identify novel proteins differentially expressed between RODCM patients with and without LV function recovery after six months.
Methods: A total of 30 consecutive patients diagnosed with RODCM were included in the study. According to the endomyocardial biopsy results, patients were divided into patients with biopsy-confirmed inflammation in the myocardium (myocarditis, n=17) and those without inflammation (dilated cardiomyopathy, n=13). All patients underwent echocardiographic examination at the time of diagnosis and after six months. During the examination in the 6th month, the recovery of LV function was assessed using echocardiography, and patients were divided into those with recovery (increase in EF>50%, n=11) and those without recovery (n=19). Untargeted proteomics of plasma was performed at the Proteomics Facility of the CEITEC MU using mass spectrometry.
Results: We identified a signature of differentially expressed proteins between patients with and without LV recovery, including (5 most altered): vinculin, leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein, serglycin, cholinesterase, and lumican. We did not identify protein signatures related to the inflammation in the myocardium.
Conclusion: Mass spectrometry of the plasma is a suitable method for identifying novel protein-based biomarkers. The current panel of proteins will now be extended to the larger cohort and validated to test its diagnostics/prognostic performance.
Supported by NU22-02-00418.