Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Love is in the hair: arginine methylation of human hair proteins as novel cardiovascular biomarkers

Marsden, Alistair James; Riley, David RJ; Birkett, Stefan; Rodriguez-Barucg, Quentin; Guinn, Barbara ann; Carroll, Sean; Ingle, Lee; Sathyapalan, Thozhukat; Beltran-Alvarez, Pedro

Authors

Alistair James Marsden

David RJ Riley

Stefan Birkett

Quentin Rodriguez-Barucg

Sean Carroll

Profile image of Pedro Beltran-Alvarez

Dr Pedro Beltran-Alvarez P.Beltran-Alvarez@hull.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in Health and Climate Change and Programme co-Director of the MSc Health and Climate Change



Abstract

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death worldwide. Extensive cardiovascular biomarkers are available using blood tests but very few, if any, investigations have described non-invasive tests for cardiovascular biomarkers based on readily available hair samples. Here we show, first, that human hair proteins are post-translationally modified by arginine methylation (ArgMe). Using western blot, proteomic data mining and mass spectrometry, we identify several ArgMe events in hair proteins and we show that keratin-83 is extensively modified by ArgMe in the human hair. Second, using a preliminary cohort (n = 18) of heterogenous healthy donors, we show that the levels of protein ArgMe in hair correlate with serum concentrations of a well-established cardiovascular biomarker, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA). Compared to blood collection, hair sampling is cheaper, simpler, requires minimal training and carries less health and safety and ethical risks. For these reasons, developing the potential of hair protein ArgMe as clinically useful cardiovascular biomarkers through further research could be useful in future prevention and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease.

Citation

Marsden, A. J., Riley, D. R., Birkett, S., Rodriguez-Barucg, Q., Guinn, B. A., Carroll, S., Ingle, L., Sathyapalan, T., & Beltran-Alvarez, P. (in press). Love is in the hair: arginine methylation of human hair proteins as novel cardiovascular biomarkers. Amino acids, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-021-03024-5

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 17, 2021
Online Publication Date Jun 28, 2021
Deposit Date Jun 17, 2021
Publicly Available Date Jul 6, 2021
Journal Amino Acids
Print ISSN 0939-4451
Publisher Springer Verlag
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-021-03024-5
Keywords Arginine methylation (ArgMe); Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA); Biomarker; Cardiovascular disease (CVD); Hair; Post-translational modifications; (PTM) Protein
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3790938
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-Being

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Files

Published article (918 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.






You might also like



Downloadable Citations