Unbiased Discovery of Genetic Determinants of Resilience to CAD: Insights From PROMISE and CATHGEN.

BACKGROUND

Genetic determinants of resilience remain poorly defined beyond family studies.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to perform an unbiased study of individuals with discordance between clinical/genetic risk and atherosclerotic burden to discover novel genetic pathways underpinning atherosclerosis.

METHODS

We used 2 genotyped cohorts with well-defined coronary anatomy: PROMISE (Prospective Multicenter Imaging Study for Evaluation of Chest Pain) (discovery cohort: coronary computed tomography angiography) and CATHGEN (CATHeterization GENetics) (validation cohort: invasive angiography). Resilience was defined as high clinical and polygenic risk of coronary artery disease (CAD), yet without coronary plaque. Resilient individuals were compared to patients with obstructive CAD (oCAD) (stenosis ≥70%) using genome-wide association analyses at variant, gene, and pathway levels.

RESULTS

In PROMISE (n = 605), 46 (8%) were resilient and 88 (15%) had oCAD. In CATHGEN (n = 3,236), 127 (4%) were resilient and 1,852 (57%) had oCAD. Clinical risk factors and polygenic risk scores were similar between resilient and oCAD patients in both cohorts. Variant- and gene-level analyses did not yield genome-wide significant signals. Pathway-level analyses identified 4 resilience-associated pathways in PROMISE that replicated in CATHGEN: adipocytokine signaling, fatty acid metabolism, fatty acid degradation, and vascular smooth muscle contraction.

CONCLUSIONS

Resilience to CAD-defined as the absence of coronary atherosclerosis despite high clinical and polygenic risk-is present in both lower- (PROMISE) and higher-risk (CATHGEN) cohorts and is linked to protective variants in metabolic and vascular pathways. This unbiased, proof-of-concept approach reveals biologically plausible targets for replication and mechanistic studies in larger imaging-based genetics cohorts.