Química Medicinal

Angiopoietin-like Protein 4 and the level of Free Fatty Acids in Human Blood Plasma: Is there a link?

Abstract

Faisal H H Ali and Yazan Ranneh

Background:

Angiopoietin-like protein 4 (Angptl4) is a new circulating protein of the Angiopoietin-like family, predominantly expressed in adipose tissue and liver. A link between Angptl4 and the levels of free fatty acids in human blood plasma remains unclear. Therefore, we hypothesized that any alteration in the concentration of plasma Angptl4 may be mediated by changes in plasma free fatty acid levels in healthy individuals.

Methods: To examine the effect of plasma free fatty acid levels on Angptl4 concentrations in humans, ELISA method was developed and used for the quantitative determination of human Angptl4 in plasma samples with known free fatty acid concentrations.

Results: It was clearly observed that there were significant (P. value<0.01) positive correlation between plasma Angptl4 concentrations and plasma levels of free fatty acid (0.905 ≤ r ≤ 1.00) and the standard curve using the human recombinant Angptl4 fragments yielded a consistent r 2 value>0.993. Raising plasma fatty acids resulted in an increase in the levels of Angptl4. While, lowering plasma fatty acids resulted in a decrease in the levels of Angptl4.

Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that changes in plasma free fatty acid levels are associated with alterations in the concentrations of Angptl4.