Non-invasive detection of unstable angina (UA) patients with different severity of coronary lesions remains challenging. This study aimed to identify plasma lipoproteins (LPs) that can be used as potential biomarkers for assessing the severity of coronary lesions, determined by the Gensini score (GS), in UA patients. We collected blood plasma from 67 inpatients with angiographically normal coronary arteries (NCA) and 230 UA patients, 155 of them with lowGS (GS ≤ 25.4) and 75 with highGS (GS > 25.4), and analyzed it using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to quantify 112 lipoprotein variables. In a logistic regression model adjusted for four well-known risk factors (age, sex, body mass index and use of lipid-lowering drugs), we tested the association between each lipoprotein and the risk of UA. Combined with the result of LASSO and PLS-DA models, ten of them were identified as important LPs. The discrimination with the addition of selected LPs was evaluated. Compared with the basic logistic model that includes four risk factors, the addition of these ten LPs concentrations did not significantly improve UA versus NCA discrimination. However, thirty-two selected LPs showed notable discrimination power in logistic regression modeling distinguishing highGS UA patients from NCA with a 14.9% increase of the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve. Among these LPs, plasma from highGS patients was enriched with LDL and VLDL subfractions, but lacked HDL subfractions. In summary, we conclude that blood plasma lipoproteins can be used as biomarkers to distinguish UA patients with severe coronary lesions from NCA patients.
Keywords: Gensini score; NMR; cardiovascular diseases; coronary lesions; lipoproteins; unstable angina.