To investigate gene expression in relation to risk factors (age, gender, BMI, HDL and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, Systolic and Diastolic Blood pressure, smoking and plasma CRP), the study-wise significance threshold was set at 3.9×10−7 to correct for the number of risk factors (n = 10) and expressions (n = 12,808) tested. Overall, 1,662 expression traits (13.0%) were associated with at least one risk factor ( Table 5 and File S6). Gender and age were the two major factors influencing expression levels (807 gene expressions were affected by gender and 396 by age). BMI, smoking and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were also correlated with numerous expression traits (230, 294 and 328, respectively). Conversely, few associations with BP and lipids were observed ( Table 5 ).
