Abstract
The morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have been increasing year by year all over the world and expanding greatly to the younger population, which becomes the leading causes of death globally that threatens human life safety. Prediction of the occurrence of diseases by using risk related adverse events is crucial for screening and early detection of CVDs. Thus, the discovery of new biomarkers that related to risks of CVDs are of urgent in the field. Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) is a 21-kDa adipokine, mainly secreted by adipocytes. Besides its well-established function in the induction of insulin resistance, it has also been found in recent years to be closely associated with CVDs and other risk factors, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, heart failure, obesity, and hyperlipidemia. In this review, we mainly focus on the progress of research that establishes the correlation between RBP4 and CVDs and the corresponding major risk factors in recent years.
Highlights
Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), whose gene is located near chromosome 10 (10q23-q24), is a 21-kDa protein secreted by hepatocytes and adipocytes
RBP4 has shown a close association with dyslipidemia, obesity, and vascular impairment
RBP4 is expected to be a new biomarker for cardiovascular disease in the future
Summary
Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), whose gene is located near chromosome 10 (10q23-q24), is a 21-kDa protein secreted by hepatocytes and adipocytes. RBP4, as the sole carrier of retinol in the blood, increases the hydrophilicity of retinol upon binding and completes the transport of retinol from the liver to target tissues. Retinol-bound RBP4 (HoloRBP) further complexes with the tetrameric structure of transthyretin protein (TTR) to form a retinol transport complex, which prevents glomerular filtration of HoloRBP (Hamilton and Benson, 2001) and effectively increases and maintains the circulating concentration of RBP4. RBP4 was found to be involved in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance in type 2 diabetic patients (Yang et al, 2005). In patients with type 2 diabetes, microalbuminuria and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) are independent determinants of elevated serum RBP4 levels (Akbay et al, 2010). It was shown that RBP4 is already diagnostically elevated before their appearance (Abbasi et al, 2020)
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