Troponin based studies in search of a biomarker for cardiac arrest

Abstract

Cardiac arrest is shown to be a cause of a large number of deaths not only in Pakistan but around the globe. The prevalence of this dis-ease demands identification of its etiology. The science of proteomics can be used to identify cardiac specific proteins. The subsequent over expression or under expression of these pro-teins can be utilized as targets not only for therapeutical interventions but also for identi-fying molecular signatures for Cardiac diseases. In context of a number of studies which have shown that the specificity of serum biomarkers like troponin (cTnI and cTnT) are questionable as they may also appear in serum in pathologi-cal conditions other than cardiac dysfunction, the search of a specific marker for cardiac arrest becomes imperative. In this study protein pro-filing of cardiac arrest patients was performed after its quantification through Bradford assay. SDS-PAGE and 2 DE techniques were used as to characterize proteins. The samples of the pa-tients prior to characterizing of proteins were subjected to lipid and cardiac enzymes profiling. The results of these investigations have shown an increase in almost all of these parameters by many folds from that of normal values. In addi-tion to this the samples were found out to be positive for troponin T which strongly confirms the incidence of the cardiac arrest. The results of SDS-PAGE exhibited the induction of three proteins of 100 kDa, 97 kDa and of 66 kDa with 100 kDa as the most highly expressed protein. In addition to that SDS-PAGE gels have shown the down regulation of 45 kDa protein, again indi-cating the changes as a result of cardiac arrest. 2DE gel patterns of cardiac arrest samples demonstrated higher number of protein spots as compare to control in the alkaline range, which might suggest their role in cardiac dysfunction. Therefore it can be concluded that this study may pave the grounds for identification of such proteins which can serve not only as potential therapeutical targets but also as candidate markers for accurate diagnosis of the disease.