Fig. 2

Heatmap of the associations between PFASs (ng/mL) and lipoprotein and lipoprotein subspecies (mg/dL) in the NHS and HPFS. Note: PFASs and lipoprotein subspecies are log transformed. Generalized linear regressions were used for the association of interest in the 124 study participants with available lipoprotein subspecies data (N range between 106 and 124) and adjusted for age (continuous), gender (female, male), smoking status (never, former, and current smoker), date of blood sampling (continuous), fasting status (yes or no), BMI (kg/m²), physical activity (MET-hr/wk), alcohol consumption (never, 0–4.9 g/d, 5.0–14.9 g/d, and > 15 g/d), AHEI (continuous), aspirin use (yes or no), regular lipid-lowering medication use (yes or no), family history of MI (yes or no), and history of hypertension (yes or no), diabetes (yes or no) and hypercholesterolemia (yes or no). The x-axis are the concentrations of PFASs, including PFOS, brPFOS, nPFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA and PFDA; the y-axis are the levels of 5 types of lipoprotein subspecies, including Apo CIII, Apo E, Apo AII, Apo CI and Apo CII. A nomenclature scheme was used to define each lipoprotein subspecies in this figure. For example, in the “HDL + APO CIII_APO E”, “ + APO CIII” (or “-APO CIII”) means that the HDL particles do (or do not) carry apo CIII, and “_APO E” means the total apo E concentration. Thus, “HDL-APO CIII_APO E” means the apo E concentration among HDL particles without apo CIII. Colors and sizes of circles indicate association coefficients, and asterisks denote association significance (* p < 0.05). Abbreviations: HDL, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol; LDL, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol; VLDL, very low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol; APO, apolipoprotein; PFOS, Perfluorooctane sulfonate; PFOA, Perfluorooctanoate; PFHxS, Perfluorohexanesulfonate; PFNA, Perfluorononanoic acid; PFDA, Perfluorodecanoic acid