Plasma Clusterin and Lipid Profile: A Link with Aging and Cardiovascular Diseases in a Population with a Consistent Number of Centenarians

Abstract

The role of Clusterin in attenuation of inflammation and reverse cholesterol transfer makes this molecule a potential candidate as a marker for cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndrome. In elderly subjects cardiovascular diseases represent the primary cause of death and different clinical studies have shown a positive correlation of these diseases with changes in the lipid pattern. This work aimed at evaluating the relationship between circulating clusterin and the biochemical parameters that characterize the lipid profile of a Sardinian population divided into five age groups including centenarians; the high frequency in Sardinia of these long-lived individuals gave us the opportunity to extend the range of the age groups to be analyzed to older ages and to better evaluate the changes in the lipid balance during ageing and its relationship with clusterin concentration in plasma. Our results showed that Clusterin concentration values of the youngest group were more similar with the centenarian’s group compared to the other age groups, and a positive correlation arises with LDL. Furthermore given the high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in the population examined and the association of Clusterin with these pathologies we evaluated Clusterin concentration variation in two groups with or without cardiovascular diseases. In presence of cardiovascular disease, Clusterin is significantly related to the most atherogenic components of lipid profile (total cholesterol and LDL), especially in women, suggesting its potential role in modulating cardiovascular metabolic risk factors.

High serum clusterin levels are associated with premature coronary artery disease in a Chinese population

“…In the present study, TC and LDL‐C were independent variables contributing to serum clusterin concentrations. In support of our results, in a recent work of 264 Sardinian individuals, clusterin was also found to be significantly related to the most atherogenic components of the lipid profile, including TC and LDL‐C . In addition, we found that participants in the highest clusterin tertiles had an increased OR for PCAD, which was especially significant in people with TC < 5.7 mmol/L and HDL‐C ≥ 1.0 mmol/L, which suggests that subjects with normal plasma lipid but higher clusterin levels may be at increased risk for PCAD.…”

Mass spectrometry‐based proteomics reveals the distinct nature of the skin proteomes of photoaged compared to intrinsically aged skin

“…Those proteins identified as being associated with lipid metabolism in photoaged skin in this study including apolipoprotein A and clusterin are known to be increased in plasma with age and so their increased presence may less be indicative of changes in lipid metabolism and more point to their detection in any residual blood in the tissue samples and/or increased vessel leakage in aged skin . Many of these proteins are also common to the process of ECM deposition, as previously discussed, and so their increased presence may be linked to the elastosis process rather than changes in lipid metabolism.…”

Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Serum from Pigs Experimentally Infected with Trichinella spiralis, Trichinella britovi, and Trichinella pseudospiralis

“…Clusterin can circulate in the blood as a free form or bind to lipoproteins, mainly their HDL fractions and less abundantly to LDL/VLDL [44][45][46]. Although the exact functions of clusterin are not fully understood, a number of recent studies indicate that this protein is involved in several biological processes, including apoptosis [47,48], lipid metabolism [49,50], membrane recycling, complement system regulation [51], or acts as a chaperone protein [52]. Currently, clusterin is attracting scientific attention in the context of neoplasia mechanisms as well.…”