No causal association between pneumoconiosis and three inflammatory immune diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

Yu-Jie Du; Zhang-Wei Lu; Kai-Di Li; Yi-Yu Wang; Hong Wu; Rong-Gui Huang; Xue Jin; Yi-Yuan Wang; Jing Wang; An-Yi Geng; Bao-Zhu Li

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2024.1373044

No causal association between pneumoconiosis and three inflammatory immune diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

Front Public Health. 2024 Mar 27:12:1373044. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1373044. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Yu-Jie Du^#^{1

2}, Zhang-Wei Lu^#^{1

2}, Kai-Di Li^{1

2}, Yi-Yu Wang^{1

2}, Hong Wu^{1

2}, Rong-Gui Huang^{1

2}, Xue Jin^{1

2}, Yi-Yuan Wang^{1

2}, Jing Wang^{1

2}, An-Yi Geng^{1

2}, Bao-Zhu Li^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
² Anhui Provincial Laboratory of Inflammatory and Immune Diseases, Hefei, China.
³ Second Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate the causal relationships between pneumoconiosis and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and gout.

Methods: The random-effects inverse variance weighted (IVW) approach was utilized to explore the causal effects of the instrumental variables (IVs). Sensitivity analyses using the MR-Egger and weighted median (WM) methods were did to investigate horizontal pleiotropy. A leave-one-out analysis was used to avoid the bias resulting from single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Results: There was no causal association between pneumoconiosis and SLE, RA or gout in the European population [OR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.94-1.10, p = 0.74; OR = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.999-1.000, p = 0.50; OR = 1.00, 95% CI: 1.000-1.001, p = 0.55]. Causal relationships were also not found in pneumoconiosis due to asbestos and other mineral fibers and SLE, RA and gout [OR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.96-1.07, p = 0.66; OR = 1.00, 95% CI: 1.00-1.00, p = 0.68; OR = 1.00, 95% CI: 1.00-1.00, p = 0.20].

Conclusion: Our study suggests that pneumoconiosis may have no causal relationship with the three inflammatory immune diseases.

Keywords: causal relationship; gout; inflammatory immune diseases; rheumatoid arthritis; systemic lupus erythematosus.

MeSH terms

Gout*
Humans
Immune System Diseases*
Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic*
Mendelian Randomization Analysis
Pneumoconiosis* / epidemiology

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81803310); the Research Fund of Anhui Institute of translational Medicine (2021zhyx-C21); Center for Big Data and Population Health of IHM (JKS2022023); Clinical Medical Research Transformation Project in Anhui Province (202304295107020026); the Peak Discipline of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Anhui Medical University.