FABP3 as biomarker of heart pathology

Abstract

A complete understanding of the mechanisms leading to release of a protein used as a biomarker is fundamental for improving decisions on which biomarker to use for which specific pathology and how to combine biomarkers to aid the clinical assessment of patients. With the discovery of new regulatory machinery - such as posttranslational inhibition of mRNAs by microRNAs - previous knowledge must be updated and modified. The potential use of fattyacid- binding protein 3 (FABP3) in evaluating cardiovascular pathologies is no exception in this regard. FABP3 is a small protein that is abundantly expressed in the cytoplasm of cardiomyocytes and that has been proposed as an early biomarker of myocardial injury. We highlight here new findings on the mechanisms leading to secretion of FABP3 and specifically how a striated muscle-specific microRNA, namely, miR-1, regulates the expression of FABP3 in different cardiac pathologies.