Causal relationship between gut microbiota and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: A two-sample Mendelian randomization

Abstract

To explore the causal relationship between gut microbiota (GM) and Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), we performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR). GM was used as an exposure factor, and instrumental variables were determined from the GWAS of 18,340 participants. GWAS of IPF (including 1028 IPF patients and 196,986 controls) from the FinnGen was used as the outcome factor. The primary analysis method is the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method, and sensitivity analysis was used to validate the reliability. Family Bacteroidaceae (OR = 1.917 95% CI = 1.083–3.393, P = .026), order Gastranaerophilales (OR = 1.441 95% CI = 1.019–2.036, P = .039), genus Senegalimassilia (OR = 2.28 95% CI = 1.174–4.427, P = .015), phylum Cyanobacteria (OR = 1.631 95% CI = 1.035–2.571, P = .035) were positively correlated with IPF. FamilyXIII(OR = 0.452 95% CI = 0.249–0.82, P = .009), order Selenomonadale (OR = 0.563 95% CI = 0.337–0.941, P = .029), genus Veillonella (OR = 0.546 95% CI = 0.304–0.982, P = .043) (OR = 0.717 95% CI = 0.527–0.976, P = .034), genus Ruminococcusgnavus (OR = 0.717 95% CI = 0.527–0.976, P = .034), genus Oscillibacter (OR = 0.571 95% CI = 0.405–0.806, P = .001) was negatively correlated with IPF. Sensitivity analysis showed no evidence of pleiotropy or heterogeneity (P > .05). The results of MR demonstrated a causal relationship between GM and IPF. Further studies are needed to investigate the intrinsic mechanisms of the GM in the pathogenesis of IPF.