VCL and chronic kidney disease: Using existing well-established statistical approaches, we ultimately identified 11 novel pleiotropic genes shared by CAD and CKD, including ARHGEF19, RSG1, NDST2, CAMK2G, VCL, LRP10, RBM23, USP10, WNT9B, GOSR2, and RPRML, some of which were previously reported to play important roles in the pathogenesis of CAD or CKD (Agosti, 2002; Sivapalaratnam et al., 2012; Zanders, 2015).