Acylation of ghrelin is increased in heart failure and decreases post heart transplantation

Figures & data

Table I. Patient characteristics and ghrelin types and levels.

	HF n = 20	p HF vs. HTx	HTx n = 35	p Control vs. HTx	Control n = 4	p Control vs. HF	p overall
Clinical
Age	57 (50–64)	0.64	58 (52–67)	0.92	24 (19–24)	0.02	0.07
Gender		1.00		0.22		0.25	0.35
Female	4/20%		7/20%		2/50%
Male	16/80%		28/80%		2/50%
BMI	28.0 (26.8–35.4)	0.03	24.5 (22.3–30.3)	0.05	33.0 (32.9–33.0)	0.40	0.09
Time since HTx (months)			39 (5–72)
Weight gain since HTx (kg)			4.3 (− 0.6–15.9)
Aetiology		0.59
Ischemic	12/60%		18/51%
Dilated/Other	8/40%		17/49%
NYHA
II	12/60%
III	4/20%
IIIB	4/20%
EF, %	23 (20–29)
Peak VO2, ml/kg/min	16.5 (13.9–18.3)
Ghrelin forms
Total ghrelin, pg/ml	223 (183–298)	0.01	176 (144–246)	0.75	177 (149–272)	0.13	0.03
Acylated ghrelin, pg/ml	76 (51–99)	< 0.001	13 (0–30)	0.06	40 (20–88)	0.22	< 0.001
Des-acyl ghrelin, pg/ml	167 (121–195)	0.86	149 (130–223)	0.53	140 (126–185)	0.75	0.85
Acylated/total ghrelin ratio	0.33 (0.20–0.47)	< 0.001	0.08 (0–0.13)	0.03	0.22 (0.14–0.32)	0.32	< 0.001

BMI, body mass index; EF, ejection fraction; HF, heart failure; HTx, heart transplantation; NYHA, New York Heart Association.

Data are shown as median (interquartile range) for continuous variables and n/percent for categorical variables.

Figure 1. Ghrelin forms and levels (A) and acylated/total ratios (B) in heart failure, heart transplantation, and controls. Bars are median and whiskers are 95% confidence interval; p-values using non-parametric (Kruskal–Wallis) one-way ANOVA. HF, heart failure; HTx, heart transplantation.

Figure 2. Correlations between acylated ghrelin and BMI in heart failure (A) and post heart transplantation (B). Correlations and p-values by Spearman's rank correlation. BMI, body mass index; HF, heart failure; HTx, heart transplantation.

Table II. Ghrelin correlations.

	HF, n = 20		HTx, n = 35
Ghrelin	R	p	R	p
Acyl vs. Total	0.594	0.01	0.361	0.03
Acyl vs. Des-acyl	− 0.076	0.76	− 0.114	0.52

HF, heart failure; HTx, heart transplantation.