Association Between Unstable Angina and CXCL17: a New Potential Biomarker

Atherosclerosis and chemokines are strongly related, but the role of the chemokine CXCL17 in atherogenesis is still poorly understood. We aim to investigate the serum CXCL17 levels in different stages of patients with coronary heart disease and explore whether these differences contribute to atherosclerosis. In the current prospective study, we enrolled 48 patients with unstable angina (UA), 51 patients with stable angina (SA) and 41 patients for the control group (CG). All subjects were diagnosed by coronary angiography and Gensini score was used to evaluate the severity of coronary artery disease. The CXCL17 levels were determined using ELISA, while lipid metabolism indicators and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) were detected by automatic biochemical analyzer. We observed that the unstable angina group had higher CXCL17 levels compared with the stable angina and the control group. The logistic regression analysis showed that CXCL17 was an independent risk factor for unstable angina. Our results showed that CXCL17 was also statistically correlated with hs-CRP, while it was irrelevant with Gensini score. CXCL17 levels were associated with activity of inflammatory response and the instability of atherosclerotic plaques. These results suggest that CXCL17 elevation may be a potential new biomarker of unstable angina.