In patients presenting with ACS, HDL functions (cholesterol efflux capacity and antioxidative activity) were significantly impaired. Impaired HDL function was found to be associated with risk of having ACS even after adjusting for known risk factors including HDL-C levels. At follow-up, there was a significant improvement in the HDL function in these patients despite a marginal decrease in HDL-C levels, though PON1 paraoxonase and arylesterase activity remained lower than in controls. Cholesterol efflux capacity and arylesterase activity were significantly correlated with apolipoprotein A-I levels but not with HDL-C levels. We also found that combination of cholesterol efflux capacity and antioxidative activity strengthened the probability of ACS prediction.
CEC, which represents HDL’s ability to prevent the formation of macrophage foam cells by removing excess cholesterol from macrophages, rather than HDL cholesterol levels, has been shown to have significant negative correlation with atherosclerotic burden [8, 13]. Our results demonstrate that HDL from ACS patients had lower ability to mediate cholesterol efflux from lipid laden macrophages compared to HDL from healthy subjects. These results are consistent with the results obtained in other studies that compared the cholesterol efflux capacity in ACS immediately after the onset of symptoms [3, 10].
PON1 is an HDL associated anti-atherosclerotic enzyme that prevents the accumulation of lipoperoxides and inhibits the lipid oxidation in low-density lipoproteins (LDL), an observation supported by earlier studies [11, 14, 25]. The binding of PON1 to apolipoprotein A-I in HDL modulates its activity [18]. In the present study, we observed lower PON1 arylesterase and paraoxonase activities in ACS group which improved at follow-up but was lower than controls suggesting decreased activity despite optimal therapy.
Our group of acute coronary syndrome patients had a high percentage of smokers and since smoking is one of the risk factors for ACS, we compared the functionality of HDL between smokers and nonsmokers presenting with ACS. We observed a lower HDL efflux capacity and arylesterase activity in smokers presenting with ACS than non-smokers who had ACS. This suggests that oxidative stress induced by smoking to be a major factor for impaired HDL function.
Evidence from scientific literature indicates that long term statin therapy decreases the progression of atherosclerotic plaque and risk of major cardiovascular events in ACS [19]. We found a significant reduction in LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol, VLDL cholesterol and a statistically insignificant decrease in HDL cholesterol.
We observed that the inflammatory status improved after therapy as indicated by decrease in hs-CRP by 62%, an effect that could partially be contributed by the statin component of the therapy. In the present study, while a significant improvement and increase was observed in cholesterol efflux capacity and PON1 activity after six months of treatment, the latter continued to be significantly lower than in normal participants even after six months.
A study on association of HDL cholesterol efflux capacity with incidence of coronary artery disease using radiolabeled cholesterol reported that the cholesterol efflux capacity was positively associated with apolipoprotein A-I levels and inversely associated with the incidence of coronary disease [21]. Data from our efflux assay performed using BODIPY- cholesterol loaded THP-1 cells, found a similar association between cholesterol efflux capacity and risk of ACS. Other functional parameters of HDL like ARE and PON1 activity were also shown to be protective against development of ACS. CEC of apo B depleted serum and apolipoprotein A-I levels in both control and ACS patients (baseline and follow-up) showed significant correlation and 15% of the variability in cholesterol efflux capacity of HDL could be explained by apolipoprotein A-I levels.
However, we found no correlation between circulating HDL cholesterol levels and cholesterol efflux capacity in control subjects and ACS patients. Furuyama F et al. in their study on effect of cardiac rehabilitation on HDL function have also shown significant correlation of CEC and ARE with apoA-I levels rather than HDL-cholesterol levels [7]. This may be because cholesterol content makes up only about 20% of the HDL particle and even that proportion differs between different HDL particles. This supports the concept that HDL cholesterol level is not an accurate measure of HDL function and marker of CVD risk as seen in recent studies [26]. Therefore, establishing a standardized cell free system for measuring CEC will help clinicians to not only understand the association of cholesterol efflux capacity with cardiovascular disease but also help with identification of high-risk individuals for intervention.
Currently cardiovascular risk stratification is done using parameters like HDL-C and apoA1 levels. The interaction observed between HDL functions suggests that impairment of both the HDL functions increases the chances of having ACS, while high CEC, ARE and PON values confer protection against ACS. Also, our results indicate that the risk prediction for ACS can be improved by measuring the HDL functional parameters together.
Indians have a high prevalence of low HDL-C levels and cardiovascular disease. However, HDL function has not been studied in them and this is the first study to do so. Whether low HDL function confer additional risk of CVD cannot conjecture since comparative efflux capacity to that of the Caucasian population is not available and no standardized reference values are available for the same. However, future studies will be useful to see this aspect of CVD risk.
Our study has a few limitations. Two groups were not age and gender matched but we have adjusted for these two factors in our analysis. We evaluated the levels of only one inflammatory marker although other inflammatory and oxidative stress markers are also seen elevated in case of acute coronary syndrome [2] and are responsible for the generating dysfunctional HDL [24]. Finally, while the results prove that HDL function is a good predictor for risk of ACS, significant improvement is required in developing a composite measure of HDL function that is adaptable for clinical set up.
The correlation of HDL functions with apolipoprotein A-I along with recent evidence supports the rationale of HDL functions being considered as the predominant therapeutic target for lipid lowering therapy rather than simply its cholesterol mass [6]. Current studies are focused on improving the functions of HDL particles, with one of them, CSL-112, a recombinant apolipoprotein A-I undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials in patients with myocardial infarction to see the effect on major adverse cardiac events (MACE), after Phase 2b trials having shown large increases in efflux capacity with this drug [5, 15]. Our data support the rationale of therapies to improve HDL function to manage the residual risk observed even after optimal decreases in LDL levels in patients with ACS.