†These authors contributed equally.
Academic Editors: Gianluca Rigatelli and Marco Zuin
Background: Proteomic studies investigating novel molecular markers of
coronary artery calcification (CAC) are scarce.This study compared the protein
expression in the serum of patients with severe CAC and non-CAC.
Methods: The serum from 30 patients with severe CAC and 30
matched-controls were screened by data-independent acquisition(DIA)-based
proteomic technology. Bioinformatics analysis tools were used to analyze the
underlying molecular mechanisms of the differentially expressed proteins.
Candidate proteins were further validated by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
(ELISA) in an independent cohort. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve
was used to estimate the diagnostic power of the candidate proteins.
Results: Among the 110 identified proteins, the expression of 81 was
significantly upregulated, whereas 29 proteins were downregulated (fold change