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Updated: Jul 30, 2026
Intravital Microscopy of Monocyte Homing and Tumor-Related Angiogenesis in a Murine Model of Peripheral Arterial Disease
Published on: August 26, 2017
Triangulation evidence for the causal effect of monocytes on pulmonary artery hypertension: a Mendelian randomization
Zhekang Liu1, Qingan Fu2, Yijia Shao2
1Cardiovascular Medicine, Jiujiang City Key Laboratory of Cell Therapy, Jiujiang No.1 People's Hospital, Jiujiang, Jiangxi, 332000, China; The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330006, China.
Background:
Previous research has indicated an association between circulating white blood cell (WBC) counts and the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), however a causal relationship is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the causal link between circulating WBC counts and PAH.
Methods:
We used the genome-wide association study (GWAS) datasets of European ancestry to perform Mendelian randomization to assess the effects of WBC counts on PAH. Summary statistics for WBC subtype counts were obtained from the Blood Cell Consortium, and data for PAH were sourced from FinnGen GWAS results. Furthermore, a cross-sectional observational study was conducted using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to explore the relationship between WBC counts and PAH, involving a sample size of 15,835 participants.
Results:
MR results showed that monocyte count was a risk factor for PAH (OR = 1.21, 95 % CI 1.05-1.40, P = 0.007), which was supported by a meta-analysis of IVW, and sensitivity analyses revealed the reliability of the MR results (OR = 1.21, 95 % CI 1.10-1.36, P = 0.0009). The association between monocyte count and PAH was also supported by a cross-sectional study based on NHANES.
Conclusions:
This study shows a causal relationship between increased risk of PAH and monocyte counts, providing new insights into the role of monocytes in PAH. However, further studies are needed to validate this finding.
