Biomarkers Screening and Mechanisms Analysis of the Restraint Stress-Induced Myocardial Injury in Hyperlipidemia ApoE-/- Mice

Objective To explore the biomarkers and potential mechanisms of chronic restraint stress-induced myocardial injury in hyperlipidemia ApoE-/- mice. Methods The hyperlipidemia combined with the chronic stress model was established by restraining the ApoE-/- mice. Proteomics and bioinformatics techniques were used to describe the characteristic molecular changes and related regulatory mechanisms of chronic stress-induced myocardial injury in hyperlipidemia mice and to explore potential diagnostic biomarkers. Results Proteomic analysis showed that there were 43 significantly up-regulated and 58 significantly down-regulated differentially expressed proteins in hyperlipidemia combined with the restraint stress group compared with the hyperlipidemia group. Among them, GBP2, TAOK3, TFR1 and UCP1 were biomarkers with great diagnostic potential. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis indicated that ferroptosis was a significant pathway that accelerated the myocardial injury in hyperlipidemia combined with restraint stress-induced model. The mmu_circ_0001567/miR-7a/Tfr-1 and mmu_circ_0001042/miR-7a/Tfr-1 might be important circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory networks related to ferroptosis in this model. Conclusion Chronic restraint stress may aggravate myocardial injury in hyperlipidemia mice via ferroptosis. Four potential biomarkers are selected for myocardial injury diagnosis, providing a new direction for sudden cardiac death （SCD） caused by hyperlipidemia combined with the restraint stress.