Primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease in patients with hyperlipoproteinemia (a)

Association of ABCC2 polymorphism and gender with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol response to simvastatin

Aim: The clinical benefits of lipid-lowering therapy with statins are widely recognized. However, the lipid-lowering efficacy of statins shows significant differences between individuals. ABCC2 has been demonstrated to contribute to the transmembrane transport of the substrate compounds. The ABCC2 SNPs may be important factors that affect individual differences in clinical drug response. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of rs717620 of ABCC2 with treatment response to simvastatin in a Chinese Han population. Methods: A total of 318 subjects were medicated with simvastatin 20 mg/day for 12 weeks after enrollment. Venous blood was obtained before and after simvastatin treatment for measurement of blood lipid profile. Subjects were classified into high-response and low-response groups depending on whether their lipid profile change was higher or lower than median change values. The ABCC2 SNP rs717620 was genotyped from blood samples with a snapshot assay. Results: A total of 12 weeks of treatment with simvastatin significantly decreased low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGs) and significantly increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C; p < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, there were no significant genetic effects of SNP rs717620 on the incidence of high- or low-response patients among TC, TG and LDL-C groups. However, rs717620 A-allele and female gender are significantly associated with the risk of low-response of HDL-C elevation after simvastatin treatment. Conclusion: ABCC2 rs717620 and female gender may be related to the low-effect of simvastatin treatment on the HDL-C level in the Chinese Han population. Female Chinese patients with hyperlipidemia carrying rs717620 GA/AA genotypes might have reduced benefit from simvastatin treatment.

Biofluid lipidome: a source for potential diagnostic biomarkers

Lipidomics is the identification and quantitation of changes in the lipidome of a cell, tissue, organ or biofluid in health and disease using high resolution mass spectrometry. Lipidome of a particular organism has relevance to the disease manifestation as it reflects the metabolic changes which can be a consequence of the disease. Hence these changes in the molecules can be considered as potential markers for screening and early detection of the disease. Biological fluids as blood/serum/plasma, urine, saliva, tear and cerebrospinal fluid, due to their accessibility, offer ease of collection with minimal or no discomfort to the patient and provide a ready footprint of the metabolic changes occurring during disease. This review provides a brief introduction to lipidomics and its role in understanding the metabolic changes in health and disease followed by discussion on the chemical diversity of the lipid species and their biological role, mammalian lipids and their metabolism and role of lipids in pathogens and the immune response before dwelling further into importance of studying lipidome in various biological fluids. The challenges in performing a lipidomic analysis at the experimental and data analysis stages are discussed.