PLEC and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: The research identified multiple genes with consistently directional effects in response to cellular activation states: MAST3, FNBP4, SPNS1, and AKIRIN1 genes were associated with an increased risk of OSA, whereas NT5DC2, SH3YL1, PABPC4, FUBP1, PBRM1, NDUFS5, SGF29, and PLEC genes demonstrated a protective effect against OSA (Figure 2A, Supplementary Figures S1-S6, and Supplementary Material 6).