A new study, published in the European Heart Journal, establishes imidazole propionate (ImP), a gut microbiota-derived molecular driver of vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis, as a novel nontraditional cardiovascular risk factor in patients with coronary artery disease.

Circulating ImP

• associates with cardio-metabolic traits
• predicts residual cardiovascular risk
• adds to gut microbiota-related risk
• represents a novel therapeutic target

The study brings recent mechanistic work on ImP into the clinical arena

• Mastrangelo A et al. Nature 2025. Link:  https://lnkd.in/gSHPN8pP
• Nageswaran V et al. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2025. Link: https://lnkd.in/gxp3cfbT
• Koh A et al. Cell 2018. Link: https://lnkd.in/gDGV7E6T
• Venskutonytė R et al. Nat Commun 2021. Link: https://lnkd.in/gJpN4gk8
• Molinaro A al. Nat Commun 2020. Link: https://lnkd.in/ggiHYB-v
• Koh A et al. Cell Metab 2020. Link: https://lnkd.in/gK5gCyHt

Reference
Wenzl FA, Wang P, Kahles F, Beck KR, Giannitsis E, Obeid S, et al. Gut microbiota-derived imidazole propionate predicts cardiometabolic risk in patients with coronary artery disease. Eur Heart J 2025. Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf661

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