PODXL and atherosclerosis: The ROC curve was employed to assess the predictive potential of these key gene markers in atherosclerosis, revealing that the AUC values for APLNR, PCDH12, PODXL, SLC40A1, TM4SF18, and TNFRSF25 were 0.763, 0.859, 0.780, 0.807, 0.792, and 0.848, respectively (Figures 4D, E).