Causal Relationship between PECAM-1 Level and Cardiovascular Diseases: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Announcing a new article publication for Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications journal. Platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM-1) is present in the vascular endothelium and plays important roles in various biological processes. Several recent studies have reported associations between PECAM-1 and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, further research is necessary to clarify the causal effects of PECAM-1 on CVDs.

To determine whether PECAM-1 and CVDs are causally associated, the authors of this article conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (TSMR) study.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with PECAM-1 were used as instrumental variants (IVs) to estimate the causal effects of PECAM-1 on CVDs. Six SNPs were included in the TSMR study. The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method was applied in the primary analysis. To confirm the initial results, several complementary analyses and pleiotropy analyses were conducted.

In the IVW analysis, higher genetically predicted PECAM-1 levels were associated with lower risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) (OR, 0.835; CI, 0.757–0.92; P = 3 × 10⁻⁴) and myocardial infarction (MI) (OR, 0.79; CI, 0.709–0.881; P = 2.03 × 10⁻⁵).

The findings confirmed that elevated PECAM-1 levels may decrease the risk of CAD and MI. These results confirm the causal effect of PECAM-1 on CVDs and may facilitate further investigation of the mechanism of PECAM-1 in CVD pathogenesis.

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Sun, Yiming Zhong and Gaoxiang Li et al. Causal Relationship between PECAM-1 Level and Cardiovascular Diseases: A Mendelian Randomization Study. CVIA. 2024. Vol. 9(1). DOI: 10.15212/CVIA.2024.0032

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