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The role of galectin-3 in patients with permanent and paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation and echocardiographic parameters of left atrial fibrosis

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Abstract

Background

Biochemical markers and imaging tests have been used with the aim of stratifying the risk and detecting atrial fibrosis. Speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) is used for the detection of atrial fibrosis and Gal-3 provides an important prognostic value. The objective of the study was to assess the association between atrial fibrosis markers and serum levels, genetic polymorphisms and genic expression of galectin-3.

Methods

206 patients with permanent AF and 70 patients with paroxysmal AF were included in the study. Real time PCR (TaqMan) system was used to study SNPs rs4652 and 4644 of the gene LGALS3. Serum levels of Gal-3 were determined by ELISA and STE was performed to assess fibrosis.

Results

Mean age of individuals with permanent AF was 66.56 ± 12 years. As for the echocardiography results, those patients showed an decrease in the following parameters peak atrial longitudinal strain (PALS) (p = 0.002) when compared to the same parameters from the paroxysmal AF group of patients. There was a correlation between serum levels of Gal-3 and PALS in the group of patients with permanent AF; the lower the levels of gal-3, the lower the LA strain (r = 0.24; p = 0.01).

Conclusions

Echocardiographic findings showed association with the groups, and with serum levels of Gal-3 in patients with permanent AF. The distribution of allelic and genotypic frequencies, and of the haplotypes of polymorphism LGALS3 rs4652 and rs4644 did not present statistical variation, which suggests that those SNPs are not associated with the AF clinical forms (permanent and paroxysmal).

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Data Availability

the datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

AF:

Atrial Fibrillation

EF:

Ejection Fraction

ELISA:

Enzyme-linked Immunossorbent Assay

BMI:

Body mass index

EDTA:

Extracted from whole blood

Gal-3:

Galectin-3

HF:

Heart Failure

HAS:

Systemic Arterial Hypertension

LA:

Left Atrial

LAD:

Left Atrial Diameter

LA volume:

Left Atrial Volume

LA vol/BSA:

Left Atrial Volume indexed to the body surface area

LVEDD:

Left Ventricle End-Diastolic Diameter

LVESD:

Left Ventricle End-Systolic Diameter

LAD:

Left Atrium Diameter

LVGLS:

Left Ventricular Global Longitudinal Strain

OR:

Odds Ratio

PALS:

Peak Atrial Longitudinal Strain

PBMCs:

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells

RV:

Reference Value

STE:

Speckle-tracking echocardiography

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Acknowledgements

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira, João Victor Batista Cabral, Kleyton Palmeira do Ó, Julio Francisco de Moura Junior, Osmário Tavares de Carvalho, Edivaldo Bezerra Mendes Filho, Taciana Furtado de Mendonça Belmont and José Maria Del Castillo. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira, Moacyr Jesus Barreto de Melo Rêgo, Luydson Richardson da Silva Vasconcelos, Dário Celestino Sobral Filho and Dinaldo Cavalcanti de Oliveira authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

The authors affirm that human research participants provided informed consent for publication of the images in all Figures and Tables.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Program in Therapeutic Innovation, Federal University of Pernambuco – PPGIT/UFPE, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira, João Victor Batista Cabral, Edivaldo Bezerra Mendes Filho, Moacyr Jesus Barreto de Melo Rêgo & Dinaldo Cavalcanti de Oliveira

  2. Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Pernambuco - FCM/UPE, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Amanda Tavares Xavier, Osmário Tavares de Carvalho, Taciana Furtado de Mendonça Belmont & Dário Celestino Sobral Filho

  3. Pernambuco Cardiovascular Emergency Room Teacher Luiz Tavares – PROCAPE/UPE, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira, Julio Francisco de Moura Junior, Osmário Tavares de Carvalho, Dário Celestino Sobral Filho & Dinaldo Cavalcanti de Oliveira

  4. Aggeu Magalhães Institute, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Recife, PE, Brasil

    Kleyton Palmeira do Ó & José Maria Del Castillo

  5. Pernambuco School of Ecography, ECOPE, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Luydson Richardson da Silva Vasconcelos

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  1. Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira
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Contributions

MMBMS: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Original Draft. JVBC: Data Curation. ATX: Data Curation. KPO: Formal Analysis. JFMJ: Data Curation. OTC: Data Curation. EBMF: Data Curation. TFMB: Writing – Review & Editing. JMDC: Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. MJBMR: Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. LRSV: Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Data Curation and Formal Analysis. DCSF: Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. DCO: Conceptualization and Writing – Original Draft.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maria Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira.

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Conflict of interest

none declared.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The project was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee from the Universidade de Pernambuco (UPE), under the number 3.850.635. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Mariana Barros Melo da Silveira, M., Victor Batista Cabral, J., Tavares Xavier, A. et al. The role of galectin-3 in patients with permanent and paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation and echocardiographic parameters of left atrial fibrosis. Mol Biol Rep 50, 9019–9027 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-023-08774-x

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