PBMC CXCL8 expression associated with coronary artery disease in 250-person case-control study

In a case-control study summarized in the article abstract, expression of the inflammatory gene CXCL8 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells was significantly higher in 125 patients with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease than in 125 healthy controls. The observed fold change was 1.94 (p < 0.001), while increased expression of IRAK1, TRAF6 and MAPK1 did not reach statistical significance.

Researchers compared the relative expression levels of four genes in the IL-1R/TLR pathway using peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the two groups. Group differences were evaluated with t-tests, and the researchers also conducted receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and multivariable binary logistic regression using z-scored ΔCt values for IRAK1, TRAF6, MAPK1 and CXCL8.

CXCL8 was the only gene whose association with coronary artery disease remained significant in the multivariable analysis (p < 0.001). In the reported receiver operating characteristic analysis, CXCL8 expression had an area under the curve of 0.81, which the abstract describes as good discrimination between patients and healthy controls. The abstract does not provide sensitivity, specificity, confidence intervals, validation results or evidence that the measure can diagnose individual patients in clinical practice.

A protein-protein interaction network analysis indicated that IRAK1, TRAF6 and MAPK1 formed an integrated upstream signalling module, whereas CXCL8 was positioned as a downstream inflammatory mediator. This computational interpretation supports a possible biological model for CXCL8 induction but does not establish a causal pathway or a clinical benefit. Because the available source is an abstract and includes no external validation, the reported discrimination and the proposed marker role remain findings of this case-control study rather than established diagnostic performance.

Subject of Research: Peripheral immune-cell CXCL8 expression as an inflammatory marker associated with coronary artery disease

Article Title: Peripheral immune cell expression of IRAK1, TRAF6, MAPK1 and CXCL8 in coronary artery disease

Article References: Subramanian, V., Kumar, M. J., Muralidharan, T. R., & Venkatesan, V. (2026). Peripheral immune cell expression of IRAK1, TRAF6, MAPK1 and CXCL8 in coronary artery disease. Molecular Biology Reports, 53(1), Article 1592. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-026-12710-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11033-026-12710-0

Keywords: coronary artery disease, CXCL8, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, case-control study, gene expression, inflammation, diagnostic discrimination, ROC analysis, IRAK1, TRAF6, MAPK1, Peripheral