Proteomic Profiling in UK Biobank

The proteomic profiling measured 1,472 protein analytes and captured 1,463 unique proteins using the Olink Explore 1536 platform in 54,306 plasma samples in the UK Biobank. The blood samples were from a randomised subset of 46,673 UKB participants at baseline visit, 6,385 individuals at baseline selected by the UKB-PPP consortium and 1,268 individuals who participated in the COVID-19 repeat imaging study at multiple visits. No batch effects, plate effects or abnormalities in protein coefficients of variation were observed [11 (link)]. We used significant (p < 3.4 × 10⁻¹¹) and independent (r² < 0.01) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instruments provided by the study of Sun et al. [1 (link)]. The details of the samples and sample selection in UKB-PPP were shown in Supplementary Methods. Up to 1,361 proteins with genetic instruments available in at least one of the outcome datasets were included in the analysis. The genetic instruments for proteins used in the MR analysis are provided in Supplementary Table 1.