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Cardiovascular Diseases and Zinc

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Abstract

Zinc is structurally and functionally essential for more than 300 enzymes and 2000 transcription factors in human body. Intracellular labile zinc is the metabolically effective zinc and tiny changes in its concentrations significantly affect the intracellular signaling and enzymatic responses. Zinc is crucial for the embrionic and fetal development of heart. Therefore, it is shown to be related with a variety of congenital heart defects. It is involved in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transformation including endocardial cushion development, which is necessary for atrioventricular septation as well as the morphogenesis of heart valves. In atherosclerosis, monocyte endothelial adhesion, and diapedesis, activation and transformation into macrophages and forming foam cells by the ingestion of oxidized LDL are monocyte related steps which need zinc. Intracellular zinc increases intracellular calcium through a variety of pathways and furthermore, zinc itself can work as a second messenger as calcium. These demonstrate the significance of intracellular zinc in heart failure and arterial hypertension. However, extracellular zinc has an opposite effect by blocking calcium channels, explaining decreased serum zinc levels, contrary to the increased cardiomyocyte and erythrocyte zinc levels in hypertensive subjects. These and other data in the literature demonstrate that zinc has important roles in healthy and diseased cardiovascular system but zinc-cardiovascular system relationship is so complex that, it has not been explained in all means. In this article, we try to review some of the available knowledge about this complex relationship.

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Research Data Policy and Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from [THIRD PARTY NAME] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [THIRD PARTY NAME].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiology, Cardiology Institute, Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Istanbul, Turkey

    Serhan Ozyildirim

  2. Department of Physiology, Medical Faculty, Selçuk University, Konya, Turkey

    Saltuk Bugra Baltaci

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SO and SBB made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work. SO and SBB drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content and approved the version to be published.

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Ozyildirim, S., Baltaci, S.B. Cardiovascular Diseases and Zinc. Biol Trace Elem Res 201, 1615–1626 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-022-03292-6

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