title: Dysregulated fatty acid metabolism in coronary ectasia: An extended lipidomic analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is not an uncommon clinical condition, which could be associated with adverse outcome. The exact pathophysiology of the disease is poorly understood and is commonly interpreted as a variant of atherosclerosis. In this study, we sought to undertake lipidomic profiling of a group of CAE patients in an attempt to achieve better understanding of its disturbed metabolism.
  
  
  METHODS
  Untargeted lipid profiling and complementary modelling strategies were employed to compare serum samples from 16 patients with CAE (mean age 63.5±10.1years, 6 female) and 26 controls with normal smooth coronary arteries (mean age 59.2±6.6years and 7 female). Sample preparation, LC-MS analysis and metabolite identification were performed at the Swedish Metabolomics Centre, Umeå, Sweden.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Phosphatidylcholine levels were significantly distorted in the CAE patients (p=0.001-0.04). Specifically, 16-carbon fatty acyl chain phosphatidylcholines (PC) were detected in lower levels. Similarly, 11 meioties of Sphyngomyelin (SM) species were detected at lower concentrations (p=0.000001-0.01) in the same group. However, only three metabolites were significantly higher in the pure CAE subgroup (6 patients) when compared with the 10 mixed CAE patients (two meioties of SM species and one of PC). Atherosclerosis risk factors were not different between groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first lipid profiling study reported in coronary artery ectasia. While the lower concentration and dysregulation of sphyngomyelin suggests an evidence for premature apoptosis, that of phosphatidylcholines suggests perturbed fatty acid elongation/desaturation, thus may be indicative of non-atherogenic process in CAE.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden; Cardiology Department, Letterkenny General Hospital, Co Donegal, Ireland.
authors.forename: Usama
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Boles
authors.affiliation: Computational Life Science Cluster (CLiC), Dept. of Chemistry, Umeå University, Sweden; Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Life Sciences (BILS), Sweden.
authors.forename: Rui Climaco
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.affiliation: Cardiology Department, Letterkenny General Hospital, Co Donegal, Ireland.
authors.forename: Santosh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: David
authors.affiliation: Cardiology Department, Letterkenny General Hospital, Co Donegal, Ireland.
authors.forename: Abdullah S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Abdullah
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. Electronic address: michael.henein@medicin.umu.se.
authors.forename: Michael Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Henein
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000097:blood* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D004108:Dilatation, Pathologic; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D050356:Lipid Metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012016:Reference Values; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D015996:Survival Rate; D013548:Sweden
chemical_list: D005227:Fatty Acids
keywords: Atherosclerosis; Coronary artery ectasia; Lipidomic analysis; Phosphatidylcholine; Sphyngeomyeline