Abstract 834: Association between ABO and Duffy blood types and circulating chemokines and cytokines

Abstract

Abstract Background: Blood group antigens may play a role in immune and inflammatory processes. The aim of this analysis was to identify specific inflammatory pathways associated with blood group antigens. Methods: We investigated associations between blood type and circulating inflammatory markers in data for 3,537 non-Hispanic white participants selected from previous case-control studies nested in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian cancer screening trial. Whole genome scans were used to infer blood types for twelve common antigen systems (ABO, Duffy, Lewis, RhE, Kidd, Kell, Secretor, Lutheran, Colton, Dombrock, Auberger, and Knops) based on well-characterized single nucleotide polymorphisms. Circulating levels of 96 immune- and inflammation-related biomarkers were measured on multiplex fluorescent bead-based panels. We estimated associations between blood type and markers using design-weighted linear or logistic regression adjusted for age, sex, smoking status, and principal components of population substructure, and using a Bonferroni correction to control for multiple comparisons. Results: Among the 1,152 blood type-biomarker associations tested, we identified 10 which were significant after correction for multiple comparisons. ABO subtype was associated with levels of sVEGFR2, sVEGFR3, and sGP130, and Duffy subtype was associated with levels of CXCL6/GCP2, CXCL5/ENA78, CCL11/EOTAXIN, CXCL1/GRO, CCL2/MCP1, CCL13/MCP4, and CCL17/TARC. Post-hoc pairwise t-tests showed that individuals with type A blood had lower levels of all ABO-associated markers than individuals with type O or B blood, while individuals with type Fy(a+b-) had lower levels of all Duffy-associated markers than individuals with type Fy(a+b+) or Fy(a-b+). Conclusion: ABO blood type is associated with levels of three circulating angiogenic markers, while Duffy blood type is associated with eight chemokines. Additional work to understand the clinical implications of these differences is needed. Citation Format: Sarah C. Van Alsten, John Aversa, Loredana Santo, M. Constanza Camargo, Wen-Yi Huang, Troy Kemp, Jia Liu, Joshua Samspon, Charles S. Rabkin. Association between ABO and Duffy blood types and circulating chemokines and cytokines [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 834.