Circulating levels of sgp130 and sex hormones in male patients with coronary atherosclerotic disease

Background and aims: Inflammation and endocrine disorders are considered as major pathogenic factors of coronary atherosclerotic disease (CAD). Sgp130, a natural antagonist of IL-6 trans-signaling, and sex hormones, especially testosterone and estradiol, are prominently considered as anti-atherosclerotic. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible association between serum sgp130 and testosterone and estradiol in male CAD patients.

Methods: A total of 254 male patients with CAD and 122 male controls were recruited for this study. Circulating IL-6, sIL-6, sgp130 were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Serum concentrations of hs-CRP, testosterone, estradiol, and other routine biochemical markers were also quantified. Besides, we observed the effects of testosterone and estradiol on sgp130 in HUVECs.

Results: Serum levels of sgp130, testosterone and estradiol and the ratio of testosterone and estradiol (T/E2) were obviously decreased in CAD patients compared with controls. Pearson correlation analysis showed that serum sgp130 levels had positive correlations with testosterone (r = 0.295, p < 0.001) and estradiol (r = 0.338, p < 0.001) levels in CAD patients. In addition, multiple regression analysis indicated that serum sgp130 was positively associated with estradiol (β-coefficient = 0.450, p < 0.001) and T/E2 ratio (β-coefficient = 0.257, p = 0.001). Furthermore, basic studies found that supernatant sgp130 levels of HUVECs were significantly increased by the cooperativity of testosterone and estradiol.

Conclusions: Low levels of serum sgp130 were positively associated with sex hormones in male patients with CAD, suggesting an important role of sgp130 in the presence of low and imbalanced sex hormones levels. Thus, regulation of sgp130 levels by rebalancing sex hormones has the potential to be a novel therapeutic for the treatment of CAD.