Correlation between Plasma PCSK9 and Blood Lipids in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Primary Nephrotic Syndrome
Howayda Abdelhamid Elshinnawy, Mohamed Sary Gharib, Abubakr Mohamed Fahmy- General Medicine
Abstract
Background
Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) is a major post-transcriptional regulator of low-density lipoprotein receptor degradation. Recently, PCSK9 was shown to be overexpressed by liver cells in rats with proteinuria. However, the levels of PCSK9 in newly diagnosed primary nephrotic syndrome (PNS) patients and correlations involving PCSK9 and blood lipids are not clearly understood.
Aim of the Work
The aim of this study is to assess the association between plasma pcsk 9 and blood lipids in patients with newly diagnosed primary nephrotic syndrome
Patients and Methods
This was a case control study in Ain Shams University hospital for 4 months on 50 patients, 35 control.
Results
in our study elevated plasma PCSK9 levels had a positive linear correlation with elevated serum TC (p value <0.001) and LDL-C (p value <0.001), triglycerides (p value 0.003), HDL (p value 0.012), VLDL(p value 0.001) A comparison of plasma PCSK9 levels of MCD, MN And primary focal segmental patients showed that they were not significantly different (p value 0.954). In our study, we found that the plasma levels of pcsk9 were significantly higher than in healthy controls 314.580 ± 73.835 ng/ml vs 253.429 ±36.666, and this difference was statistically significant P-value <0.001. In our study plasma PCSK9 levels in patients with PNS had no linear correlation with the amount of proteinuria per 24 h, p value 0.070 or with albumin p value 0.549 and there was no statistical difference between the the two groups of proteinuria (3.5-8 (g)/24 h vs > 8 (g)/24 h) p value 0.378.
Conclusion
Plasma PCSK9 levels in newly diagnosed primary nephrotic patients were markedly increased and positively correlated with total cholesterol, VLDL, LDL, HDL. suggesting that PCSK9 may emerge as a novel therapeutic target in nephrotic syndrome associated hypercholesterolemia