Genetically Predicted Circulating Omega-3 Fatty Acids Levels Are Causally Associated With Increased Risk for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Peng Wang; Kun Xiang; Yuan-Yuan Xu; Yi-Sheng He; Yu-Qian Hu; Jing Ni; Hai-Feng Pan

doi:10.3389/fnut.2022.783338

Genetically Predicted Circulating Omega-3 Fatty Acids Levels Are Causally Associated With Increased Risk for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Front Nutr. 2022 Feb 9:9:783338. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2022.783338. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Peng Wang^{1

2}, Kun Xiang^{2

3}, Yuan-Yuan Xu⁴, Yi-Sheng He^{2

3}, Yu-Qian Hu^{2

3}, Jing Ni^{2

3}, Hai-Feng Pan^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Teaching Center for Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
² Inflammation and Immune Mediated Diseases Laboratory of Anhui Province, Hefei, China.
³ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
⁴ Department of Outpatient Wound Care Center, 901 Hospital of Joint Logistics Support Force of People Liberation Army, Hefei, China.

Abstract

Background: Accumulating evidence has demonstrated the associations of omega-3 or omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) with the disease activity and inflammatory mediators of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), but the evidence of causal links of omega-3 or omega-6 PUFAs on the risk for SLE remains inconclusive.

Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the causal relationships between omega-3/omega-6 PUFAs and SLE by performing the Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

Methods: Genome-wide significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were obtained from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of circulating omega-3/omega-6 levels (n = up to 13,544) and GWAS meta-analyses of SLE (n = 14,267), respectively. The bidirectional two-sample MR (TSMR) analysis was conducted to infer the causality.

Results: The inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method revealed that genetically determined per SD increase in omega-3 levels were causally associated with an increased risk for SLE (odds ratios [ORs] = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.07, 2.08, p = 0.021), but no causal effect of omega-6 on the risk SLE was observed (IVW OR = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.72, 1.57, p = 0.759). In addition, there were no significantly causal associations in genetic predisposition to SLE with the changes of omega-3 and omega-6 levels, respectively (IVW beta for omega-3: 0.007, 95% CI: -0.006, 0.022, p = 0.299; IVW beta for omega-6: -0.008, 95% CI: -0.023, 0.006, p = 0.255).

Conclusion: The present study revealed the possible causal role of omega-3 on increasing the risk for SLE, it could be the potential implications for dietary recommendations.

Keywords: Mendelian randomization; SLE; omega-3 fatty acids; omega-6 fatty acids; systemic lupus erythematosus.