Causal Effects between Gut Microbiome and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

Gang He; Yu Cao; Honghao Ma; Siran Guo; Wangzi Xu; Dai Wang; Yongquan Chen; Houzhao Wang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1190894

Causal Effects between Gut Microbiome and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

Front Microbiol. 2023 Jul 6:14:1190894. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1190894. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Gang He¹, Yu Cao¹, Honghao Ma¹, Siran Guo², Wangzi Xu¹, Dai Wang¹, Yongquan Chen³, Houzhao Wang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics. School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
² Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Sinomedicine, Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
³ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Xiang'an Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.

Abstract

Background: Evidence from previous studies have implicated an important association between gut microbiota (GM) and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), but whether there is a definite causal relationship between GM and ME/CFS has not been elucidated.

Method: This study obtained instrumental variables of 211 GM taxa from the Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS), and mendelian randomization (MR) study was carried out to assess the effect of gut microbiota on ME/CFS risk from UK Biobank GWAS (2076 ME/CFS cases and 460,857 controls). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) was the primary method to analyze causality in this study, and a series of sensitivity analyses was performed to validate the robustness of the results.

Results: The inverse variance weighted (IVW) method indicated that genus Paraprevotella (OR:1.001, 95%CI:1.000-1.003, value of p < 0.05) and Ruminococca- ceae_UCG_014 (OR 1.003, 95% CI 1.000 to 1.005, value of p < 0.05) were positively associated with ME/CFS risk. Results from the weighted median method supported genus Paraprevotella (OR 1.003, 95% CI 1.000 to 1.005, value of p < 0.05) as a risk factor for ME/CFS.

Conclusion: This study reveals a causal relationship between genus paraprevotella, genus Ruminococcaceae_UCG_014 and ME/CFS, and our findings provide novel insights for further elucidating the developmental mechanisms mediated by the gut microbiota of ME/CFS.

Keywords: Myalgia Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; causal relationship; gut microbiome; gut microbiota; mendelian randomization.