Bidirectional Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study of Immunoglobulin G N-Glycosylation and Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotype

Abstract

Observational studies revealed changes in Immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycosylation during the aging process. However, it lacks causal insights and remains unclear in which direction causal relationships exist. The two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) design was adopted to explore causal associations between IgG N-glycans and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) and Wald ratio methods were used as the main analyses, supplemented by sensitivity analyses. Forward MR analyses revealed causal associations between the glycan peak (GP) and SASP, including GP6 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.428, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.189–0.969) and GP17 (OR = 0.709, 95%CI = 0.504–0.995) with growth/differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), GP19 with an advanced glycosylation end-product-specific receptor (RAGE) (OR = 2.142, 95%  CI  = 1.384–3.316), and GP15 with matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) (OR = 1.136, 95%  CI =1.008–1.282). The reverse MR indicated that genetic liability to RAGE was associated with increased levels of GP17 (OR = 1.125, 95%  CI  = 1.003–1.261) and GP24 (OR = 1.222, 95%  CI  = 1.046–1.428), while pulmonary and activation-regulated chemokines (PARC) exhibited causal associations with GP10 (OR = 1.269, 95%  CI  = 1.048–1.537) and GP15 (OR = 1.297, 95%  CI = 1.072–1.570). The findings provided suggested evidence on the bidirectional causality between IgG N-glycans and SASP, which might reveal potential regulatory mechanisms.