The Heart Disease Biomarker Discovery project was aimed at determining the global pattern of protein abundance expressed in human cardiac tissue obtained from heart failure patients. These proteins represent biomarkers of the disease and will serve as the basis for diagnostic and prognostic tests of heart failure, a condition in which heart muscle function is no longer able to meet the demands of the body. Heart failure is emerging as the major killer in cardiovascular disease and will affect one in five Canadians. However, there is currently no way to identify the condition in its early stages.

The researchers used proteomic profiling and computational approaches to identify and determine the relative abundance of thousands of proteins in heart tissue. The studies were conducted in key animal models, including tissue isolated from pre-symptomatic and overtly diseased adult mice, as well as from control mice. The project team also compared changes in the proteomes of heart tissue from patients suffering from heart failure with those with normal, healthy hearts, to identify the unique protein markers for heart failure. In parallel, statistical approaches were developed to evaluate the resulting datasets, associating protein patterns with specific disease stages.

The project completed comprehensive proteomic profiling and extensive computational analyses of key animal models in order to develop a list of possible biomarkers of cardiac disease. The molecular “signatures” that resulted from this research effort may help with the diagnosis of heart failure and allow researchers to predict the effects of various treatments. The ultimate goal in the future is to continue this work in order to develop a simple blood test with which physicians could screen for early forms of heart disease and thereby slow the emerging tide of heart disease sufferers.