Abstract
BACKGROUND: Endotrophin is a novel circulating fibroinflammatory protein that has recently been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality. However, little is known about its role early in the natural history of vascular disease nor whether it exhibits ethnicity-specific variation. Recognizing that South Asians have an elevated risk of ultimately developing CVD, we sought to address these questions by characterizing endotrophin and its physiologic correlates in young South Asian women as compared to White women. METHODS: From a cohort recruited in pregnancy and followed to 1-year after delivery, we identified 40 participants of South Asian descent and 40 age- and BMI-matched White women. These individuals underwent cardiometabolic characterization at 1-year postpartum, including assessment of anthropometrics, blood pressure, glucose tolerance, insulin resistance, pancreatic beta-cell function, and serum endotrophin. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in serum endotrophin concentration between South Asians and Whites (median 19.3 ng/ml [interquartile range 14.5-23.8] vs 17.3 ng/ml [14.4-21.7], p = 0.37). However, endotrophin was positively correlated with systolic blood pressure (r = 0.43, p = 0.006) in South Asians but not in White women (r = -0.02, p = 0.89), mirroring differential associations that were similarly observed with fasting glucose (South Asian: r = 0.34, p = 0.03; White: r = -0.21, p = 0.21). Moreover, on multiple linear regression analyses, systolic blood pressure was independently associated with endotrophin in South Asians only (beta = 0.016, p = 0.008). CONCLUSION: Endotrophin relates to blood pressure in young South Asian women but not White women, suggesting ethnic variation in its early vascular associations that potentially could be relevant to the elevated lifetime risk of CVD in South Asians.