Blood CSF1 and CXCL12 as Causal Mediators of Coronary Artery Disease
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Identification of biomarkers that cause coronary artery disease (CAD) has led to important advances in prevention and treatment. Epidemiological analyses have identified many biomarker-CAD relationships; however, these associations may arise from reverse causation and/or confounding and therefore may not represent true causal associations. Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses overcome these limitations. Objectives This study sought to identify causal mediators of CAD through a comprehensive screen of 237 biomarkers using MR. Methods MR was performed by identifying genetic determinants of 227 biomarkers in ORIGIN (Outcome Reduction With Initial Glargine Intervention) trial participants (N = 4,147) and combining these with genetic effects on CAD from the CARDIoGRAM consortium (60,801 cases and 123,504 controls). Blood concentrations of novel biomarkers identified by MR were then tested for association with incident major adverse cardiovascular events in ORIGIN. Results Six biomarkers were found to be causally linked to CAD after adjustment for multiple hypothesis testing. The causal role of 4 of these is well documented, whereas macrophage colony-stimulating factor 1 (CSF1) and stromal cell–derived factor 1 (CXCL12) have not previously been reported, to the best of our knowledge. MR analysis predicted an 18% higher risk of CAD per SD increase in CSF1 (odds ratio: 1.18; 95% confidence interval: 1.08 to 1.30; p = 2.1 × 10 −4 ) and epidemiological analysis identified a 16% higher risk of major adverse cardiovascular events per SD (hazard ratio: 1.16; 95% confidence interval: 1.09 to 1.23; p < 0.001). Elevated CXCL12 levels were also identified as a causal risk factor for CAD with consistent epidemiological results. Furthermore, genetically predicted CSF1 and CXCL12 levels were associated with CAD in the UK Biobank (n = 343,735). Conclusions The study identified CSF1 and CXCL12 as causal mediators of CAD in humans. Understanding the mechanism by which these markers mediate CAD will provide novel insights into CAD and could lead to new approaches to prevention. These results support targeting inflammatory processes and macrophages, in particular, to prevent CAD, consistent with the recent CANTOS (Canakinumab Antiinflammatory Thrombosis Outcome Study). (Outcome Reduction With Initial Glargine Intervention [ORIGIN]; NCT00069784 )
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".