Clinical significance of circulating cardiomyocyte-specific cell-free DNA in patients with heart failure: a proof-of-concept study

This study enrolled 32 heart failure patients and 28 control subjects. Total cfDNA levels were not different between groups (P=0.343). Bisulfite-digital PCR using unmethylated FAM101A locus demonstrated cardiomyocyte-specific cfDNA was significantly elevated in heart failure patients compared to controls (median 0.99 [IQR, 0.77-1.98] vs 0 [0-0.91] copies/mL, P=0.003). Cardiomyocyte-specific cfDNA significantly discriminated heart failure from controls (AUC, 0.716, P=0.003), and was positively correlated with troponin I (r=0.438, P=0.003) but not with B-type natriuretic peptide (r=0.275, P=0.058). cfDNA may be a novel biomarker to measure cardiomyocyte death in heart failure.
Source: Canadian Journal of Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Source Type: research