Tissue proteomics in atherosclerosis: elucidating the molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a disease with higher levels of mortality in developed countries. Comprehension of the molecular mechanisms can yield very useful information in clinics for prevention, diagnosis and recovery monitoring. Proteomics represents an ideal methodology for this purpose, as proteins constitute the effectors of the different biological processes running during pathogenesis. To date, studies in atherosclerosis have been mainly focused on the search for plasma biomarkers. However, tissue proteomics allows going deeper into tissue secretomes, arterial layers or particular cells of interest, which, in turn, constitutes a more direct approximation to in vivo operating mechanisms. The aim of this review is to report latest advances in tissue proteomics in atherosclerosis and related diseases (e.g., aortic stenosis and ischemic injury).

Keywords::

• aortic stenosis
• atherosclerosis
• cardiac ischemia
• laser microdissection
• subproteome
• tissue proteomics

Financial & competing interests disclosure

This work was supported by grants from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FIS PI070537, FIS PI080970), CAM (Proteomarkers S2006/GEN-0247), the Mutua Madrileña Automovilista (20174/004). Fernando de la Cuesta was supported by FIS (Ref. FI06/00583). Gloria Alvarez-Llamas was supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia through the Juan de la Cierva program (Ref. JCI-2006-3349). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.