Diagnostic performance of RAC2 combined with CT-FFR parameters in coronary heart disease.

Background: The incidence and mortality of coronary heart disease (CHD) are high in the elderly population. CT fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) is a potential diagnostic technique for cardiovascular diseases. In order to mine valuable biomarkers to combine CT-FFR parameters to improve the diagnostic accuracy of CHD.

Methods: In this study, GEO database was used to screen the key genes of CHD. GraphPad software was used to construct receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and SPSS software was used for logistic regression analysis. Inflammatory cell model was constructed by treating human cardiac microvascular endothelial cells (HMVEC-Cs) with TNF-α to explore the role of RAC2 in this process.

Results: Real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) results showed high-expression of RAC2 in CHD patients, which were reversed after nitric ester drug therapy. The analysis of ROC curves displayed that RAC2 combined with CT-FFR had a higher diagnostic value for CHD (AUC=0.971, 95% CI 0.950-0.992) compared to the single factor, and RAC2 was an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in CHD patients treated with nitric ester drugs (AUC=0.888, 95% CI 0.814-0.961, P<0.001). Overexpression of RAC2 further enhanced the elevated expression levels of NF-κB, NLRP3, IL-1β, and IL-6, induced by TNF-α, and its silence had the opposite effect.

Conclusions: RAC2 promoted the inflammatory response of HMVEC-Cs and predicted a poor prognosis in CHD patients. The combination of RAC2 and CT-FFR parameters was a good classifier for diagnosing CHD.