Atlas of Plasma NMR Biomarkers for Health and Disease in 118,461 Individuals from the UK Biobank

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2023 Feb 3

PMID 36737450

Authors

Heli Julkunen

Anna Cichonska

Mika Tiainen

Harri Koskela

Kristian Nybo

Valtteri Makela

Jussi Nokso-Koivisto

Kati Kristiansson

Markus Perola

Veikko Salomaa

Pekka Jousilahti

Annamari Lundqvist

Antti J Kangas

Pasi Soininen

Jeffrey C Barrett

Peter Wurtz

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Blood lipids and metabolites are markers of current health and future disease risk. Here, we describe plasma nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) biomarker data for 118,461 participants in the UK Biobank. The biomarkers cover 249 measures of lipoprotein lipids, fatty acids, and small molecules such as amino acids, ketones, and glycolysis metabolites. We provide an atlas of associations of these biomarkers to prevalence, incidence, and mortality of over 700 common diseases ( nightingalehealth.com/atlas ). The results reveal a plethora of biomarker associations, including susceptibility to infectious diseases and risk of various cancers, joint disorders, and mental health outcomes, indicating that abundant circulating lipids and metabolites are risk markers beyond cardiometabolic diseases. Clustering analyses indicate similar biomarker association patterns across different disease types, suggesting latent systemic connectivity in the susceptibility to a diverse set of diseases. This work highlights the value of NMR based metabolic biomarker profiling in large biobanks for public health research and translation.

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