Our new preprint on a proteomic signature of atherosclerosis

📣 The new preprint from our lab describing the development of proteomic signatures of atherosclerosis (AtheroBurden scores) is now out!

Although atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause of death worldwide, we lack circulating biomarkers of systemic atherosclerosis burden beyond imaging techniques. In this work, we trained 4 proteomics signatures of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in uk biobank using the olink proteomics explore assay.

Our signatures showed:

👉 Discriminated presence and absence of 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞

👉 Showed 𝐝𝐨𝐬𝐞-𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 with the number of vascular beds affected by atherosclerosis

👉 Strongly predicted 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 in disease-free individuals in both uk biobank and external cohorts (4-fold higher risk in q4 vs q1 ❗ )

👉 Correlated with 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠-𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧

👉 L𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 according to baseline cardiovascular risk and future mace occurrence

potential for applications following further validation:

👉 As circulating biomarkers, atheroburden signatures could be useful as a 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞, tracking cardiovascular risk, and monitoring responses to preventive interventions in primary care

👉 They could 𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 by serving as 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 or 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 in trials of atheroprotective treatments

---

👏 Kudos to Lanyue Zhang for leading this effort in the context of her excellent PhD work!