Systematic analysis of relationships between plasma branched-chain amino acid concentrations and cardiometabolic parameters: an association and Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Abstract Background Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs; valine, leucine, and isoleucine) are essential amino acids that are associated with an increased risk of cardiometabolic diseases (CMD). However, there are still only limited insights into potential direct associations between BCAAs and a wide range of CMD parameters, especially those remaining after correcting for covariates and underlying causal relationships. Methods To shed light on these relationships, we systematically characterized the associations between plasma BCAA concentrations and a large panel of 537 CMD parameters (including atherosclerosis-related parameters, fat distribution, plasma cytokine concentrations and cell counts, circulating concentrations of cardiovascular-related proteins and plasma metabolites) in 1400 individuals from the Dutch population cohort LifeLines DEEP and 294 overweight individuals from the 300OB cohort. After correcting for age, sex, and BMI, we assessed associations between individual BCAAs and CMD parameters. We further assessed the underlying causality using Mendelian randomization. Results A total of 838 significant associations were detected for 409 CMD parameters. BCAAs showed both common and specific associations, with the most specific associations being detected for isoleucine. Further, we found that obesity status substantially affected the strength and direction of associations for valine, which cannot be corrected for using BMI as a covariate. Subsequent univariable Mendelian randomization (UVMR), after removing BMI-associated SNPs, identified seven significant causal relationships from four CMD traits to BCAA levels, mostly for diabetes-related parameters. However, no causal effects of BCAAs on CMD parameters were supported. Conclusions Our cross-sectional association study reports a large number of associations between BCAAs and CMD parameters. Our results highlight some specific associations for isoleucine, as well as obesity-specific effects for valine. MR-based causality analysis suggests that altered BCAA levels can be a consequence of diabetes and alteration in lipid metabolism. We found no MR evidence to support a causal role for BCAAs in CMD. These findings provide evidence to (re)evaluate the clinical importance of individual BCAAs in CMD diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.