For an independent biological evaluation of the compiled seed gene lists, we tested for association between candidate functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) mapping to each seed gene and selected established cardiovascular biomarkers, C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM), as well as a clinical vascular pathophenotype, venous thromboembolism (VTE) (see Methods and Supplementary Fig. 1). Here, CRP is linked to venous thromboembolism.