Fig. 4: Hormonal contraceptive use is strongly affecting the circulating blood proteome of women below the age of 40 in two independent cohorts.

Volcano plots illustrating the association between protein abundances and hormonal contraceptive use in the CHRIS a and the BASE-II d cohort. The sample sizes are n = 729 and n = 240, respectively. Each point represents one protein, red coloring indicates significant association. b and e Abundance of the protein angiotensinogen (AGT) in study participants taking hormonal contraceptives (HCU) and women and men that don’t in the CHRIS b or the BASE-II e study. Samples sizes for the 3 groups are 316, 1,623, and 1,533 in CHRIS and 91, 149, and 197 in BASE-II. c ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristics) curve demonstrating the high predictive power of AGT for HCU. f Comparison of effect sizes of all proteins for association with HCU in CHRIS and BASE-II; the solid black line represents the identity line. Correlation of data points: Spearman’s rho = 0.91.