Association between ABO and Duffy blood types and circulating chemokines and cytokines

Blood group antigens are inherited traits that may play a role in immune and inflammatory processes. We investigated associations between blood groups and circulating inflammation-related molecules in 3537 non-Hispanic white participants selected from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. Whole-genome scans were used to infer blood types for 12 common antigen systems based on well-characterized single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Serum levels of 96 biomarkers were measured on multiplex fluorescent bead-based panels. We estimated marker associations with blood type using weighted linear or logistic regression models adjusted for age, sex, smoking status, and principal components of population substructure. Bonferroni correction was used to control for multiple comparisons, with two-sided p values