Undercarboxylated osteocalcin as a biomarker in coronary atherosclerosis patients, and the relationship of the carboxylation process to cardiac risk factors

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease is a multifactorial disease. The management of these factors alone or in combination has not completely eliminated the disease, so there is a need to find an independent risk factor and new predictive markers to combine them with validated factors to improve the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis. Osteocalcin (an osteoblast-derived protein and regulator of metabolic processes) is a promising candidate for demonstrating a link between bone metabolism and atherosclerosis. This study included 84 patients with atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries and 26 healthy controls. These patients were divided into two groups: a group of patients with early coronary atherosclerosis (ECA) (n = 33), a group of patients with late coronary atherosclerosis (LCA) n =51. We investigated the level of carboxylated osteocalcin (cOC) and undercarboxylated osteocalcin ( ucOC) using ELISA technique.
The results of the study showed that ucOC can be considered as a new biomarker of coronary atherosclerosis. The study also showed an inverse and significant correlation between serum hypochlorous osteocalcin levels and fasting blood glucose (FPG) at all stages of disease progression. On the other hand, there is a statistically significant positive correlation between ucOC, total cholesterol, and LDL, especially in the late stages of the disease. We can conclude that the carboxylation process determines the role of osteocalcin as a protective factor or as a risk factor in coronary atherosclerosis.