Coronary artery calcification

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is the build-up of plaque in the coronary arteries, resulting in reduced vascular compliance, abnormal vasomotor responses, and impaired myocardial perfusion (Kronmal RA et al. (2007)). CAC is calculated as a score by computer tomography (CT), which is used to identify individuals at the risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). People living with ASCVD have a high risk of getting an ischaemic heart disease (IHD), which is the leading cause of global mortality (Roth GA et al. (2020)). Symptoms can include chest pain (angina), shortness of breath and fatigue. Higher CAC scores are associated with age, male sex, white ethnicity, hypertension, BMI, diabetes, glucose, and family history of heart attack. Low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and creatinine are known predictors of CAC progression.

Differential abundance and machine learning analysis

This section presents the disease-specific results of the differential abundance and machine learning analyses. The analyses are reported for three comparisons: 1) disease vs. all other diseases, 2) disease vs. diseases from the same class, and 3) disease vs. healthy samples.

Disease vs All other
Disease vs Class
Disease vs Healthy