Influence of lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase alteration during different pathophysiologic conditions: A 45 years bibliometrics analysis

Hongliang Gao; Jing Wu; Zhenyu Sun; Furong Zhang; Tianshu Shi; Ke Lu; Dongfu Qian; Zicheng Yin; Yinjuan Zhao; Jian Qin; Bin Xue

doi:10.3389/fphar.2022.1062249

Influence of lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase alteration during different pathophysiologic conditions: A 45 years bibliometrics analysis

Front Pharmacol. 2022 Dec 14:13:1062249. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.1062249. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Hongliang Gao^{1

2

3}, Jing Wu¹, Zhenyu Sun⁴, Furong Zhang¹, Tianshu Shi⁵, Ke Lu⁶, Dongfu Qian⁴, Zicheng Yin⁷, Yinjuan Zhao³, Jian Qin¹, Bin Xue¹

Affiliations

¹ Core Laboratory, Sir Run Run Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
² School of Clinical Medicine, Wannan Medical College, Wuhu, China.
³ Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
⁴ School of Health Policy and Management, Center for Global Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Department of Sports Medicine and Adult Reconstructive Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, China.
⁶ Research Center for Computer-Aided Drug Discovery, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
⁷ Nanjing Foreign Language School, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Background: Lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) is an important enzyme responsible for free cholesterol (FC) esterification, which is critical for high density lipoprotein (HDL) maturation and the completion of the reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) process. Plasma LCAT activity and concentration showed various patterns under different physiological and pathological conditions. Research on LCAT has grown rapidly over the past 50 years, but there are no bibliometric studies summarizing this field as a whole. This study aimed to use the bibliometric analysis to demonstrate the trends in LCAT publications, thus offering a brief perspective with regard to future developments in this field. Methods: We used the Web of Science Core Collection to retrieve LCAT-related studies published from 1975 to 2020. The data were further analyzed in the number of studies, the journal which published the most LCAT-related studies, co-authorship network, co-country network, co-institute network, co-reference and the keywords burst by CiteSpace V 5.7. Results: 2584 publications contained 55,311 references were used to analyzed. The number of included articles fluctuated in each year. We found that Journal of lipid research published the most LCAT-related studies. Among all the authors who work on LCAT, they tend to collaborate with a relatively stable group of collaborators to generate several major authors clusters which Albers, J. published the most studies (n = 53). The United States of America contributed the greatest proportion (n = 1036) of LCAT-related studies. The LCAT-related studies have been focused on the vascular disease, lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase reaction, phospholipid, cholesterol efflux, chronic kidney disease, milk fever, nephrotic syndrome, platelet-activating factor acetylhydrolase, reconstituted lpa-i, reverse cholesterol transport. Four main research frontiers in terms of burst strength for LCAT-related studies including "transgenic mice", "oxidative stress", "risk", and "cholesterol metabolism "need more attention. Conclusion: This is the first study that demonstrated the trends and future development in LCAT publications. Further studies should focus on the accurate metabolic process of LCAT dependent or independent of RCT using metabolic marker tracking techniques. It was also well worth to further studying the possibility that LCAT may qualify as a biomarker for risk prediction and clinical treatment.

Keywords: bibliometrics; emerging trends; lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase; physiological; risk.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 32071142, 32271187, the Nature Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, BK20191356, the Six talent peaks project in Jiangsu Province, yy-014; Jiangsu Educational Development, Young and middle-aged academic leader of Jiangsu Qinglan Project, KY520R202025, the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China, No. 20KJB180004, the Science and Technology Development Fund of Nanjing Medical University-General Project, No. NMUB2019079.