Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a prevalent cardiac arrhythmia associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Oxidative stress (OS) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of AF, suggesting that targeting OS-related genes could offer novel therapeutic opportunities. This study aimed to identify causal OS-related genes contributing to AF through a comprehensive multi-omics Summary-based Mendelian Randomization (SMR) approach.
This study integrated data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) with methylation quantitative trait loci (mQTL), expression QTL (eQTL), and protein QTL (pQTL) to explore the relationships between oxidative stress-related (OS-related) genes and AF risk. Genes associated with oxidative stress and AF were obtained from the Nielsen et al. study (discovery) and the FinnGen study (replication). The SMR analysis and HEIDI test were utilized to assess causal associations, followed by Bayesian co-localization analysis (PPH4 > 0.5) to confirm shared causal variants. Multi-omics data were employed to analyze the associations within mQTL-eQTL pathways. A two-sample MR analysis was conducted for sensitivity verification. The significance of findings was determined using a false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05 and
At the DNA methylation level, 19 CpG sites near 7 unique genes were found to have causal effects on AF and strong co-localization evidence support (PPH4 > 0.70). At the gene expression level, six oxidative stress-related genes from eQTLGen and three from GTEx (v8), including
This study identified several OS-related genes, particularly TTN, as having causal roles in AF, which were verified across three-omics pathways. The findings underscore the importance of these genes in AF pathogenesis and highlight their potential as therapeutic targets. The integration of multi-omics data provides a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying AF, paving the way for targeted therapeutic strategies.