Galectin-3: a Novel Marker of Fibrosis and Heart Failure
Dainius Daunoravičius, Virginija Grabauskienė, Julius Bogomolovas, Valerija Jablonskienė, Dalius Vitkus
Summary
Biomarkers are increasingly being used in the management of patients with acute and chronic heart failure (HF). Galectin-3 is a recently developed biomarker which can be used as prognostic marker in patients with HF. Galectin-3 is a soluble p-galactoside-binding lectin that plays an important regulatory role in cardiac fibrosis and remodeling, which are key contributing mechanisms to the de vel op ment and pro gres sion of HF. Galectin-3 promotes macrophage migration, fibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis, or the development of fibrosis.
The galectin-3 dependent link between inflammation and fibrosis is widely studied and may be important in the process of heart remodeling and HF. Galectin-3 was found to be increased in patients with acutely decompensated and chronic HF. The involvement of galectin-3 in the development of fibrosis has been demonstrated not only in the liver and in the kidney, but in the heart as well. Taken together, these observations suggest that measuring galectin-3 levels may potentially be useful in a wider range of HF patients to determine their risk in general and to examine the value of this new biomarker when added to conventional risk markers. In this paper we review the experimental and existing clinical data of the new biomarker galectin-3 in patients with HF and discuss practical aspects of interpretation of galectin-3 results in conjunction with natriuretic peptides.
Keywords: galectin-3, biomarkers, fibrosis, remodeling, heart failure, prognosis.
