Association of Plasma Pentraxin-3 Level with Lipid Levels and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in People with No History of Lipid-Lowering Medication: the Dong-gu Study.

AIM

To elucidate the role of pentraxin-3 (PTX3) in atherosclerosis, we evaluated lipid and cardiovascular risk profiles according to the plasma PTX3 levels in subjects from the general population.

METHODS

A sub-cohort of 2,000 subjects was randomly sampled from a Korean community-based cohort study. After excluding those with a medication history for dyslipidemia, 1,747 subjects (902 men and 845 women) were included in the final analyses. Linear and logistic regressions with adjustment for appropriate variables were performed.

RESULTS

The PTX3 level was positively associated with the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level and negatively associated with the log-transformed triglyceride (TG) level, total cholesterol/HDL-C ratio, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)/HDL-C ratio (p＜0.05). Subjects with the highest PTX3 levels (≥ 1.17 ng/dl) exhibited a lower risk of metabolic syndrome (odds ratio [OR] 0.73, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.57-0.94), overweight/obesity (OR 0.65, 95% CI 0.50-0.83), increased TG level (OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.51-0.86), and increased HDL-C level (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.51-0.88) compared to those with the lowest PTX3 level (＜0.7 ng/dl).

CONCLUSION

The circulating PTX3 level was inversely associated with metabolic syndrome, overweight/obesity, and parameters of dyslipidemia, suggesting a cardioprotective role of PTX3 in atherosclerosis.