IMR Press / RCM / Volume 25 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2502041
Open Access Original Research
Gut Microbiome and Atherosclerosis: A Mendelian Randomization Study
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1 Department of Cardiology, Yue Bei People's Hospital, Shantou University Medical College, 512099 Shaoguan, Guangdong, China
2 Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, The Second Clinical Medical College, Jinan University, 518071 Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
*Correspondence: Rangochan99@hotmail.com (Liangqiu Tang)
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2024, 25(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2502041
Submitted: 4 July 2023 | Revised: 19 September 2023 | Accepted: 19 October 2023 | Published: 29 January 2024
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: According to recent studies, atherosclerosis and gut microbiota are related. Nevertheless, it has been discovered that the gut microbiota varies across studies, with its function still being debated, and such relationships not proven to be causal. Thus, our study aimed to identify the key gut microbiota taxa (GM taxa) at different taxonomic levels, namely, the phylum, class, order, family, and genus, to investigate any potential causal links to atherosclerosis. Methods: We employed summary data from the MiBioGen consortium on the gut microbiota to conduct a sophisticated two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Pertinent information regarding atherosclerosis statistics was acquired from the FinnGen Consortium R8 publication. To assess causality, the utilized principal analytical technique was the inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method. Supplementary to IVW, additional MR methodologies were employed, including weighted median, MR-Egger, weighted methods, and simple mode. Sensitivity analyses involved the application of Cochrane’s Q-test, MR-Egger intercept test, MR-PRESSO global test, and leave-one-out analysis. Results: Finally, after performing an MR study on the risk of 211 GM taxa on atherosclerosis, we discovered 20 nominal links and one strong causal link. Firmicutes (phylum ID: 1672) (odds ratio (OR) = 0.852 (0.763, 0.950), p = 0.004) continued to be connected with a lower incidence of coronary atherosclerosis, even after Bonferroni correction. Conclusions: Based on the discovered data, it was established that the phylum Firmicutes exhibits a causal relationship with a reduced occurrence of coronary atherosclerosis. This investigation could potentially provide novel insights into therapeutic objectives for atherosclerosis by focusing on the gut microbiota.

Keywords
coronary atherosclerosis
cerebral atherosclerosis
intestinal microbiota
phylum Firmicutes
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