Urine proteomics in cardiovascular disease: advances in biomarker discovery and clinical applications

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide, making early diagnosis and effective treatment essential. As a promising and noninvasive research method, urine proteomics shows excellent potential to identify reliable urinary biomarkers that could enhance prediction, prevention, and prognosis in patients with CVD.

This review summarizes recent advancements in urinary protein biomarker profiling using urine proteomic techniques to identify potential CVD biomarkers. Additionally, it highlights potential disease biomarkers for the early detection, risk stratification, and monitoring of CVD, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, angina, myocardial infarction, heart failure, preeclampsia, and vasculitis. A literature search was conducted through Pubmed, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Web of Science. The period is January 2009 to February 2024.

Over the past decade, urinary proteomics has been employed in CVD research, with the potential to facilitate the discovery of novel disease biomarkers and the exploration of prospective therapeutic targets. Proteomics-based multicenter cohort studies should be conducted in the future to gain deeper insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of CVD, accelerate the identification of potential biomarkers for disease prediction, diagnosis, and treatment, and facilitate their clinical translation.