[Remnant like particles as a risk factor for coronary artery disease]

Plasma triglyceride(TG) has now emerged as an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease(CAD). In contrast to LDL, TG-rich lipoproteins are heterogenous in size and apolipoprotein composition. Remnant is proatherogenic TG-rich lipoproteins, thereby drawing much research interest of how to isolate and quantify remnants. Remnant like particles(RLP) was developed by using immunoaffinity gels coupled to anti-apoA-I and anti-apoB-100 antibodies. RLP has been shown to be positively correlated with coronary vasocontraction to acetylcholine in CAD patients, suggesting that RLP causes endothelial dysfunction. Further study revealed that CAD patient with relatively high RLP-C levels had a significantly poor prognosis as compared to low RLP-C counterpart. Both Framingham heart study and VA-HIT also found RLP-C as a significant risk factor for CAD. In conclusions, RLP-C is a reasonable indicator for proatherogenic remnants, thus considered as a new risk factor for CAD.