Very-Low-Density Lipoprotein–Associated Apolipoproteins Predict Cardiovascular Events and Are Lowered by Inhibition of APOC-III

Prospective study by Manuel Mayr to evaluate multiple apolipoproteins as CVD risk markers. Previously, only apoA-I and apoB were used clinically to assess CVD risk, and the authors wanted to expand this significantly by examing the plasma levels of many apolipoproteins in relation to CVD events (stroke, MI, sudden cardiac death). They followed 688 subjects over a 10-year period, primarily using mass spectrometry (specifically, MRM-MS) and identified apoC-II, apoC-III and apoE as showing significant correlation with CVD risk. Moreover, they observed significant reductions in apolipoprotein and lipid levels when patients were treated with an antisense drug targeted against apoC-III. The only reference to Olink data made in the main paper was to comment that apoC-II, apoC-III and apoE levels showed correlations with a number of other proteins involved in lipid metabolism, coagulation, the complement system, inflammation and immunity. This data is only shown in the on-line supplementary data and is not identified as involving Olink panels in the main paper. A word of warning: In the discussion there is a quite strong statement against using immunoassays as compared to MS for this type of study (see Comments), so this shouldn’t be a paper to focus on with customers!