Cardiac-derived neutrophil chemotactic factors, recently renamed as Nourins, may be clinically useful as biomarkers of early cardiac ischemia, according to a presentation at the 55th annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry.

Researchers have been interested in nourins because the chemotactic factors are released in response to mild and reversible ischemia as well as irreversible ischemia. Recent work has identified a protein isoform specific for cardiac ischemia, Nourin-1, which may be the earliest biological signal for tissue ischemia.
Robert H. Christenson, Ph.D., the study presenter, suggested that a blood test could identify ischemia sufficiently early that measures could be taken to prevent a future myocardial infarction. According to Christenson, an improved assay could be only 3 to 5 years away from clinical use.

Research work is also being done to identify similar proteins that may act as a biomarker for cerebral ischemia before stroke, or possibly even a clinically apparent transient ischemic attack, occurs.