Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Coronary Artery Disease
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1524605

Transcriptomic signatures of subcutaneous adipose tissue in patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease: A pilot study

Provisionally accepted
ILIAS DOULAMIS ILIAS DOULAMIS 1*Bernard Pan Bernard Pan 2Aspasia Tzani Aspasia Tzani 3Jorge Plutzky Jorge Plutzky 3G. William Wong G. William Wong 4Ahmet Kilic Ahmet Kilic 5Risa Wolf Risa Wolf 4
  • 1 Division of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA, Department of Cardiac Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
  • 2 Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
  • 3 Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
  • 4 Center for Metabolism and Obesity Research, Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
  • 5 Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The exact role of subcutaneous adipose tissue in the interplay between type 2 diabetes (T2D) and coronary artery disease (CAD) is yet to be determined. A prospective cohort study of adult patients with and without T2D undergoing CABG and collected subcutaneous adipose tissue samples for RNA seq analysis was performed. A total of 741 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified (332 up-and 409 down-regulated in the T2D group). Our results demonstrated that pathways related to apoptosis and immune response were significantly dysregulated in the adipose tissue of T2D subjects. The main molecular pathways involved were CXCR, NOTCH, STAT, NFKB1 and FGFR pathways, which have a well-documented role in diabetes and CAD. SPI1 and MTF1 were two novel upstream transcription factors identified which have been suggested to be involved in the inflammatory cascade and insulin regulation in diabetes. Three miRNAs that were differentially expressed between the two groups (miR-27a, miR-335 and miR-146). These preliminary results provide fertile ground for further research of potential targets for patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease.

    Keywords: Coronary Artery Disease, diabetes, Subcutaneous Fat, Transcriptome, RNA seq

    Received: 07 Nov 2024; Accepted: 09 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 DOULAMIS, Pan, Tzani, Plutzky, Wong, Kilic and Wolf. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: ILIAS DOULAMIS, Division of Cardiac Surgery, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA, Department of Cardiac Surgery, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.