“…In fact, while in some trials CRP did not merge as a strong independent cardiovascular risk factor (instead of IL-1, IL-6, TNF-α, albumin, and body mass index) [52,53,55,60], the genetic analysis of polymorphisms leading to a gain of function of gene transcription of CRP failed to demonstrate a dose-dependent effect of this marker [64] and a possible causal role. Other biomarkers (sTWEAK, MIC-1, CD4 + CD28-null T-cells, RANKL, pentraxin3, CCR5, GAL-3, myeloperoxidase, Lp-PLA 2 , and sCD14) , have also been linked to cardiovascular risk in ESRD [32,34,45,46,47,48,51,57,61,62,63]. Besides studies of association, there are evidences that uremic serum directly causes vascular damage [65] via activation of pro-inflammatory endothelial pathways (e.g., TLR4, NF-κB, NALP3 [NACHT, LRR and PYD domains-containing protein 3] and p38 MAPK [p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase]), which induce increased endothelial expression of ICAM-1, VCAM-1 (vascular cell adhesion molecule-1), von Willebrand factor [66,67], reduced nitric oxide availability, generating endothelial dysfunction [68].…”