Association between gut microbiota and central retinal artery occlusion: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Jin Chen; Xinghua Wang; Junjie Yang; Jiahui Huang; Meng Xie; Zixuan Su; Fagang Jiang

doi:10.4103/IJO.IJO_3304_23

Association between gut microbiota and central retinal artery occlusion: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Indian J Ophthalmol. 2024 May 13. doi: 10.4103/IJO.IJO_3304_23. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jin Chen¹, Xinghua Wang, Junjie Yang, Jiahui Huang, Meng Xie, Zixuan Su, Fagang Jiang

Affiliation

¹ Department of Ophthalmology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

PMID: 38736244
DOI: 10.4103/IJO.IJO_3304_23

Abstract

Purpose: The gut microbiota might be closely related to central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO), but the causality has not been well defined. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study was used to reveal the potential causal effect between the gut microbiota and CRAO.

Methods: Data for gut microbiota were obtained from the genome-wide association studies of the Dutch Microbiome Project (DMP) (n = 7738) and the MiBioGen consortium (n = 18,340), and data on CRAO were obtained from samples of FinnGen project (546 cases and 344,569 controls). Causalities of exposures and outcomes were explored mainly using the inverse variance weighted method. In addition, multiple sensitivity analyses including MR-Egger, weighted median (WM), simple mode, weighted mode, and MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier were simultaneously applied to validate the final results.

Results: We identified three microbial pathways (two risk factors/one protective factor) and seven microbial taxa (two risk factors/five protective factors) associated with CRAO in the DMP study. Based on the data from the MiBioGen consortium, we identified seven microbial taxa (two risk factors/five protective factors) associated with CRAO, including the Eubacterium genus, which was consistently identified as a risk factor in both the DMP and the MiBioGen consortium MR analyses.

Conclusion: Our study implicates the potential causal effects of specific microbial taxa and pathways on CRAO, potentially providing new insights into the prevention and treatment of CRAO through specific gut microbial taxa and pathway. Since our conclusion is a hypothesis derived from secondary genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data analysis, further research is needed for confirmation.