The Lower Concentration of Plasma Acetyl-Carnitine in Epicardial Artery Disease—A Preliminary Report

Coronary artery disease remains an epidemiological challenge as global morbidity is not declining despite the fact that the risk factors are well known. Metabolomic derivatives of atherosclerosis formation have recently gained attention as a possible non-traditional risk factor. The aim of this study was to find potential differences in acetyl-carnitine chain serum concentrations between epicardial artery disease patients and a control group. There were 41 patients (25 men and 16 women), with a median (Q1-Q3) age of 69 (63-73) years, enrolled in the prospective metabolomic analysis. They were divided into two groups based on cine angiography results confirming epicardial artery disease (group 1, <i>n</i> = 25 (61%)) or showing characteristics corresponding to normal angiograms (group 2, <i>n</i> = 16 (39%)). The quantitation of metabolites was performed based on the coronary angiograms. Significant differences related to the plasma concentration of L-Acetyl-carnitine (7.49 (4.79-9.23) µM vs. 9.36 (8.57-10.23) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.009)), Decanoyl-carnitine (0.00 (0.00-0.37) µM vs. 0.36 (0.19-0.44) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.040)), C12:1-carnitine (0.17 (0.14-0.20) µM vs. 0.22 (0.18-0.24) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.008)), trans-2-Dodecenoyl-carnitine (0.10 (0.07-0.13) µM vs. 0.13 (0.10-0.15) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.002)), cis-5-Tetradecenoyl-carnitine (0.03 (0.02-0.04) µM vs. 0.04 (0.03-0.05) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.043)), and 3,5-Tetradecadien-carnitine (0.16 (0.14-0.18) µM vs. 0.18 (0.17-0.27) µM (<i>p</i> = 0.007)) in group 1 vs. group 2 were noted. Increased plasma levels of acetyl-carnitine may be characteristic of patients with normal coronary angiograms.