Albumin and Cardiovascular Diseases

The human plasma proteome has always been the most investigated compartment in proteomics-based biomarker discovery and is considered the largest and deepest version of the human proteome, reflecting the state of the body in health and disease. Even if efforts have been always dedicated to the refinement of proteomic approaches to investigate more deeply the plasma proteome, it should not be forgotten that also highly abundant plasma proteins like human serum albumin (HSA), often neglected in these studies, might provide fundamental physiological functions in plasma and should be better considered. This chapter summarizes the important roles of the HSA in the context of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Notwithstanding much attention has been historically directed toward the association of HSA levels and CVD risk, the advances in the field of mass spectrometry research allow also a better characterization of the effects of oxidative modifications that could alter not only the structure but also the functions of HSA.