Comparative studies of 2168 plasma proteins measured by two affinity-based platforms in 4000 Chinese adults
Open accessAbstract
Proteomics offers unique insights into human biology and drug development, but few studies have directly compared the utility of different proteomics platforms. We measured plasma levels of 2168 proteins in 3976 Chinese adults using both Olink Explore and SomaScan platforms. The correlation of protein levels between platforms was modest (median rho = 0.29), with protein abundance and data quality parameters being key factors influencing correlation. For 1694 proteins with one-to-one matched reagents, 765 Olink and 513 SomaScan proteins had cis -pQTLs, including 400 with colocalising cis -pQTLs. Moreover, 1096 Olink and 1429 SomaScan proteins were associated with BMI, while 279 and 154 proteins were associated with risk of ischaemic heart disease, respectively. Addition of Olink and SomaScan proteins to conventional risk factors for ischaemic heart disease improved C-statistics from 0.845 to 0.862 (NRI: 12.2%) and 0.863 (NRI: 16.4%), respectively. These results demonstrate the utility of these platforms and could inform the design and interpretation of future studies.
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Existing comparisons of SomaScan and Olink platforms have shown that some protein measures are not concordant, with median inter-platform correlation = 0.38-0.50, which challenges the accuracy of protein associations observed.
“However, existing comparisons of SomaScan and Olink platforms have shown that some protein measures are not concordant (median inter-platform correlation = 0.38–0.50)11–16, which challenges the accuracy of protein associations observed, especially as there is no “gold-standard” reference measure for most proteins.”
From Cross-ancestry comparison of aptamer and antibody protein measures (2026) · cites this paper as [11]
The Discussion (page unavailable) reports that previous comparisons found moderate inter-platform correlations (median rho ≈ 0.4), and that proteins with lower correlations were more likely to yield platform-specific or discordant associations. It does not give the claimed 0.38–0.50 range; its own study reports a median rho of 0.29. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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References 62 · Cited by 64
- Authors
- Wang, B., Pozarickij, A., Mazidi, M., Wright, N., Yao, P., Said, S., Iona, A., Kartsonaki, C., Fry, H., Lin, K., Chen, Y., Du, H., Avery, D., Schmidt-Valle, D., Yu, C., Sun, D., Lv, J., Hill, M., Li, L., Bennett, D. A., Collins, R., Walters, R. G., Clarke, R., Millwood, I. Y., Chen, Z., & On behalf of China Kadoorie Biobank Collaborative Group
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Peking University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Millwood, Iona Y.
- Chen, Zhengming
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-02-21
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1869-1869
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11845630
- OpenAlex
- W4407821672
- Cited by
- 64
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 18.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (212946/Z/18/Z, 202922/Z/16/Z, 088158/Z/09/Z, 104085/Z/14/Z)
- Cancer Research UK (C500/A16896, C16077 /A29186)
- British Heart Foundation (CH/1996001/9454, FS/18/23/33512)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (82192904, 82192901, 82192900)
- Medical Research Council (MC_PC_14135, MC_UU_00017/1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Advanced Biosensing Techniques and Applications
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Spectroscopy › Advanced Proteomics Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- plasma proteins, SomaScan, cis-pQTL, protein abundance, body mass index, ischemic heart disease risk, risk prediction, Chinese adults
- MeSH terms
- East Asian People, Adult, Aged, Blood Proteins, China, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Risk Factors, Body Mass Index, Myocardial Ischemia, Proteomics
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