Plasma concentration of heat shock protein 27 and risk of cardiovascular disease: a prospective, nested case-control study.

BACKGROUND Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) has been hypothesized to be a potential biomarker of atherothrombosis. However, no prospective studies have yet been performed to investigate the association between HSP27 plasma concentration and incident cardiovascular events among initially healthy individuals. METHODS We evaluated plasma concentrations of HSP27 at baseline among 255 initially healthy participants in the Women's Health Study who subsequently developed myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, or cardiovascular death during a follow-up period of up to 5.9 years and among an equal number of women matched for age and smoking but who remained free of cardiovascular disease over the same time period. RESULTS Overall, HSP27 plasma concentrations were inversely associated with age (Spearman correlation coefficient r = -0.258, P <0.001), but not with other established cardiovascular risk factors. Conditional logistic regression analysis showed no significant association of baseline HSP27 plasma concentration with future cardiovascular disease; the odds ratio for upper vs lower tertile of HSP27 concentration at baseline was 0.99 (95% CI 0.62-1.57, P for trend = 0.99). CONCLUSION In this prospective study of initially healthy women, baseline HSP27 plasma concentration was not associated with incident cardiovascular events.