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Ghrelin Derangements in Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy: Impact of Myocardial Disease Duration and Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction. 2019

Aneta Aleksova, and Antonio Paolo Beltrami, and Elisa Bevilacqua, and Laura Padoan, and Daniela Santon, and Federico Biondi, and Giulia Barbati, and Elisabetta Stenner, and Gianluca Gortan Cappellari, and Rocco Barazzoni, and Fabiana Ziberna, and Donna R Zwas, and Yosefa Avraham, and Piergiuseppe Agostoni, and Tarcisio Not, and Ugolino Livi, and Gianfranco Sinagra

Cardiovascular Department, Azienda Sanitaria Universitaria Integrata di Trieste and Department of Medical Surgical and Health Sciences, University of Trieste, 34149 Trieste, Italy. aaleksova@units.it.

BACKGROUND Ghrelin may exert positive effects on cardiac structure and function in heart failure (HF) patients. METHODS We assessed ghrelin levels in 266 dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients and in 200 age, gender and body mass index (BMI) matched controls. Further, we evaluated the expression of ghrelin and growth hormone secretagogue-receptor (GHSR) in the myocardium of 41 DCM patients and in 11 controls. RESULTS DCM patients had significantly lower levels of total, acylated and unacylated ghrelin when compared to controls (p < 0.05 for all). In controls, we observed a negative correlation of ghrelin with age, male gender and BMI. These correlations were lost in the DCM group, except for male gender. Total ghrelin was higher in patients with more recent diagnosis when compared to patients with longer duration of the DCM (p = 0.033). Further, total ghrelin was higher in patients with lower left ventricular systolic function (<40% LVEF, vs. 40% ≤ LVEF < 49% vs. LVEF ≥ 50%: 480.8, vs. 429.7, vs. 329.5 pg/mL, respectively, p = 0.05). Ghrelin prepropeptide was expressed more in DCM patients than in controls (p = 0.0293) while GHSR was expressed less in DCM patients (p < 0.001). Furthermore, ghrelin showed an inverse correlation with its receptor (= -0.406, p = 0.009), and this receptor showed a significant inverse correlation with Interleukin-1 (= -0.422, p = 0.0103). CONCLUSIONS DCM duration and severity are accompanied by alterations in the ghrelin-GHSR system.