ABSTRACT
Chest pain is a leading reason patients seek medical evaluation. While assays to detect myocyte death are used to diagnose a heart attack (acute myocardial infarction, AMI), there is no biomarker to indicate an impending cardiac event. Transcriptional patterns present in circulating endothelial cells (CEC) may provide a window into the plaque rupture process and identify a proximal biomarker for AMI. Thus, we aimed to identify a transcriptomic signature of AMI present in whole blood, but derived from CECs. Candidate genes indicative of AMI were nominated from microarray of enriched CEC samples, and then verified for detectability and predictive potential via qPCR in whole blood. This signature was validated in an independent cohort. Our findings suggest that a whole blood CEC-derived molecular signature identifies patients with AMI and sets the framework to potentially identify the earlier stages of an impending cardiac event where conventional biomarkers indicative of myonecrosis remain undetected.
- AMI
- acute myocardial infarction
- AUC
- area under the curve
- CAD
- coronary artery disease
- CEC
- circulating endothelial cells
- CMP
- circulating microparticles
- CVD
- cardiovascular disease
- GSEA
- gene set enrichment analysis
- qPCR
- quantitative polymerase chain reaction
- ROC
- receiver operator characteristic
