Decreased Expression of Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte-associated Protein 4: A Risk Factor of Myocardial Infarction

Cardiovascular diseases are the most prevalent disease worldwide and pose a considerable
threat to human health. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) plays a crucial
role in the maintenance of immune diseases; however, its role in the progression of
cardiovascular disorders is still unknown. The present study aimed to evaluate the relationship
between CTLA-4 and myocardial infarction (MI).
The Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes database and the pathway studio database has
revealed the role of CTLA4 as an inhibitory receptor on activated T cells. The relative expression
of the CTLA-4 gene was assessed on the peripheral blood cells in 80 MI patients and 80 healthy
individuals using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and also receiver
operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity
of CTLA-4.
We noticed the decreased expression of CTLA-4 levels in patients, compared to the control
group (2.73±1.55 vs. 5.36±1.34). The study revealed the sensitivity of 0.89, specificity of 0.83,
the accuracy of 0.9, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.901 (95% CI: 0.727-0.776) for
CTLA-4.
The results highlighted the critical role of CTLA-4 as an inhibitory receptor in the
maintenance of cardiovascular risks.