A Whole Blood Molecular Signature for the Identification of Acute Myocardial Infarction Without Relying Upon Myonecrosis (microarray)

Despite the significant reduction in the overall burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) over the past decade, CVD still accounts for a third of all deaths in the United States and worldwide each year. While efforts to identify and reduce risk factors for atherosclerotic heart disease (i.e. hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, cigarette smoking, inactivity) remain the focus of primary prevention, the inability to accurately and temporally predict acute myocardial infarction (AMI) impairs our ability to further improve patient outcomes. Our diagnostic evaluation for the presence of coronary artery disease relies on functional testing, which detects flow-limiting coronary stenosis, but we have known for decades that most lesions underlying AMI are only of mild to moderate luminal narrowings, not obstructing coronary blood flow. Accordingly, there is a dire need of improved diagnostics for underlying arterial plaque dynamics, fissure and rupture. Here we describe the designation of a specific gene expression pattern acting as a molecular signature for acute myocardial infarction present in whole blood of patients that was determined using microarray analysis of enriched circulating endothelial cells (CEC).

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Muse ED, Kramer ER, Wang H, Barrett P, Parviz F, Novotny MA, Lasken RS, Jatkoe TA, Oliveira G, Peng H, Lu J, Connelly MC, Schilling K, Rao C, Torkamani A, Topol EJ