Increased levels of the cardiovascular disease risk biomarkers GDF15 and myostatin in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Abstract

Individuals suffering from cancer, including hematological malignancies, are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Elevated levels of several biomarkers in blood are associated with an increased risk of CVD. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a subset of such CVD risk biomarkers was elevated in patients with untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Blood plasma and serum from 139 CLL patients and 71 healthy age-matched controls were analyzed for 11 proposed CVD risk biomarkers. The CLL cohort displayed a more heterogeneous pattern of biomarker expression compared to controls. The majority, eight out of 11, analyzed CVD risk biomarkers differed significantly in concentrations between CLL patients and controls. Increased levels of the biomarkers GDF15 and myostatin have not previously been reported in CLL. Further prospective studies are warranted to investigate whether these biomarkers predict future cardiovascular events in patients with CLL.

Increased plasma endostatin and GDF15 in indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma

“…Thus, it is conceivable that MMP activity facilitates vascular sprouting and capillary growth by making the vascular basement membrane permeable to migrating and proliferating endothelial cells. Matrix metalloproteinases are expressed in several types of solid tumors ( 24 ), and increased expression of MMP9 has also been seen in patients with CLL and high-grade NHL ( 12 , 26 ).…”

“…Long pentraxin 3, an acute phase reactant, is involved in several aspects of cancer progression, such as angiogenesis and immune modulation ( 33 ). The pro-angiogenic glycoprotein GAL-3 is upregulated in anaplastic large cell lymphoma cells ( 34 ) and it has recently been shown that plasma GAL-3 is increased in CLL ( 12 ). In this study, we found no significant differences in mean plasma levels of PTX3 and GAL-3 when comparing the two lymphoma cohorts and the controls, indicating that these two proteins are not involved in indolent B-NHL angiogenesis and disease progression.…”

“…The aim of this study was to investigate plasma levels of six angiogenesis-associated proteins in an attempt to reveal their possible roles in indolent B-NHL progression. We have recently shown that the plasma level of growth differentiation factor (GDF15) is increased in multiple myeloma (MM) and in chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) ( 11 , 12 ). Plasma matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) and the pro-angiogenic glycoprotein galectin 3 (GAL-3) are also increased in CLL ( 12 ).…”

“…We have recently shown that the plasma level of growth differentiation factor (GDF15) is increased in multiple myeloma (MM) and in chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL) (11,12). Plasma matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) and the pro-angiogenic glycoprotein galectin 3 (GAL-3) are also increased in CLL (12). Increased levels of the angiogenesis-associated proteins endostatin, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), and long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) have been observed in different types of NHL, in CLL and in NK/T-cell lymphoma (13)(14)(15).…”

Biobanks as an important tool in modern translational oncology

“…Moreover, biobanking is helping to identify new biomarkers of disease, including noninvasive biomarkers (based on blood, saliva, buccal epithelium samples, etc. ), for example the use of samples from the U-CAN biobank revealed elevated levels of myostatin in the blood of patients with chronic lymph leukemia (Larsson et al, 2020). The overall role of biobanks in biomarker research is described in several comprehensive reviews (Lommen, Odeh, de Theije, and Smits, 2020;Matzke and Watson, 2020).…”