Modification of Cardiovascular Proteins by Metabolic Disease

Director: Catherine E. Costello, PhD

The Boston University Cardiovascular Proteomics Center (CPC) is a research center funded by the NIH/NHLBI to analyze and identify proteins that may be modified or created by cardiovascular disease (CVD) brought on by unfavorable metabolic conditions and diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. The CPC is developing and applying a targeted proteomic approach and bioinformatics tools to detect the effects of abnormal metabolism on proteins. The identification of a set of markers of metabolic dysfunction may afford opportunities to be used as tissue-specific biomarkers of the disease. These will provide new and powerful approaches to the detection and monitoring of metabolic CVD.

Investigators at the Center propose that the specificity of detecting CVD of metabolic causes will be greatly increased by a targeted proteomic approach to detect the effects of abnormal metabolism on proteins. They are examining which proteins within the diseased heart and vasculature are modified and what modifications occur in response to metabolic disease; they are identifying a subset of these modified proteins in the plasma that show potential for use as tissue-specific biomarkers of the disease.

To accomplish these tasks, the investigator team continues to develop and refine their proteomics pipeline and bioinformatics tools. They expect to define a set of markers of metabolic dysfunction that may provide early evidence for the development of cardiovascular dysfunction as a result of metabolic syndromes, and to develop antibody and tandem mass spectrometric methods for the identification and quantification of the key candidates. These will provide new and powerful approaches to the detection and monitoring of metabolic CVD.