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Nutrition and Health (including climate and ecological aspects)

Causal analysis of serum polyunsaturated fatty acids with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and ocular comorbidity

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 77, pages 75–81 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Background & objective

To investigate the causal effects of plasma Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on the risk of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and ocular comorbidity through Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

Methods

Genetic variants (formerly single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) that are strongly associated with PUFAs levels (P < 5×10−8) were selected as instrumental variables. Summary-level MR was performed with outcome estimates for JIA (n = 31,142) and JIA associated iridocyclitis (n = 94,197). The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method was employed as the main approach to combine the estimation for each SNP. Two set of models with summary statistics were conducted and multiple sensitivity analyses were applied for testing of pleiotropic bias.

Results

In model 1, genetically predicted n-6 PUFAs linoleic acid (LA) and arachidonic acid (AA) were associated with lower and higher risk of JIA associated iridocyclitis using IVW (ORLA = 0.940, 95% CI: 0.895–0.988, P = 0.015; ORAA = 1.053, 95% CI: 1.007–1.101, P = 0.024). No such association was observed between each plasma PUFAs and JIA susceptibility (P > 0.05). In further MR analysis, results from model 2 also showed a consistent trend. Besides, multiple sensitivity analyses revealed that there was no obvious evidence for unknown pleiotropy (P > 0.05).

Conclusions

Our MR study provides genetic evidence on the possible causality that plasma LA level might protect against JIA associated iridocyclitis, whereas AA was responsible for opposite effect.

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Fig. 1: Principles of Mendelian randomization (MR) and the assumptions required to obtain an unbiased causal effect estimate.
Fig. 2: Summary MR estimates of association between plasma n-6 PUFAs and JIA associated iridocyclitis.

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Data availability

The data and material that support the findings of this study are available from public datasets in NHGRIEBI GWAS Catalog and MRC IEU Open GWAS Project.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all the investigators of the NHGRIEBI GWAS Catalog and the MRC IEU Open GWAS Project for providing the data publicly.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Qinxin Shu, Chenyang Zhao.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Qinxin Shu, Chenyang Zhao, Yusen Liu, Jiayu Meng & Jun Zhang

  2. Chongqing Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Chongqing, China

    Qinxin Shu, Chenyang Zhao, Yusen Liu, Jiayu Meng & Jun Zhang

  3. Chongqing Eye Institute, Chongqing, China

    Qinxin Shu, Chenyang Zhao, Yusen Liu, Jiayu Meng & Jun Zhang

  4. Chongqing Branch of National Clinical Research Center for Ocular Diseases, Chongqing, China

    Qinxin Shu, Chenyang Zhao, Yusen Liu, Jiayu Meng & Jun Zhang

  5. Department of Geriatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, P. R. China

    Jing Yu

  6. Wuhan Aier Eye Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, P. R. China

    Shuqiong Hu

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Contributions

QS, CZ, and JY were involved in the conceptualization, the design of the study and drafted the manuscript; QS and CZ acquired and analyzed the data; YL, SH and JM helped to design the research; JZ revise the manuscript, supervise the study and perform data interpretation.

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Correspondence to Jun Zhang.

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Shu, Q., Zhao, C., Yu, J. et al. Causal analysis of serum polyunsaturated fatty acids with juvenile idiopathic arthritis and ocular comorbidity. Eur J Clin Nutr 77, 75–81 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-022-01196-1

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