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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Med.
Sec. Rheumatology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1408980

Casual Effects of Telomere Length on Sarcoidosis: A Bidirectional Mendelian Randomization Analysis

Provisionally accepted
Shiben Zhu Shiben Zhu 1Hao Ziyu Hao Ziyu 2Qihang Chen Qihang Chen 1Xiaoliu Liu Xiaoliu Liu 3Wenyan Wu Wenyan Wu 3Yanping Luo Yanping Luo 3Fang Zhang Fang Zhang 4*
  • 1 School of Nursing and Health Studies, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China
  • 2 The Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong Region, China
  • 3 Medical Laboratory, Shenzhen Luohu People's Hospital,, Shenzhen, China
  • 4 Department of Science and Education, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Telomere length, crucial for genomic stability, have been implicated in various inflamm-aging diseases, but their role in sarcoidosis remains unexplored.Objective: This study aims to explore the casual effects between TL and sarcoidosis via a bidirectional Mendelian Randomization (MR) study.: We examined single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with TL and sarcoidosis, utilizing available open-access genome-wide association study (GWAS) databases from the UK Biobank and FinnGen. We employed five MR techniques, including Inverse Variance 2 / 20 Weighted (IVW), MR Egger, weighted median (WM), Robust adjusted profile score (RAPS), and Maximum likelihood, to assess causal relationships and explore pleiotropy.Results: Summary data extracted from GWAS datasets of TL (n=472,174) and (n=217,758) of European ancestry. Employing 130 SNPs with genome-wide significance as instrumental factors for TL, we detect a significant negative correlation between TL and sarcoidosis (OR: 0.682, 95% confidence interval: 0.524-0.888, 𝒑𝒑: 0.0045). Similarly, utilizing 6 SNPs with genome-wide significance as instrumental factors for sarcoidosis, we fail to identify a noteworthy association between sarcoidosis and TL (OR:0.992, 95% confidence interval: 0.979-1.005, 𝒑𝒑: 0.2424).Our results suggest that longer telomeres may reduce the risk of sarcoidosis, highlighting TL as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and long-term monitoring. Understanding the critical role of telomere shortening enables more effective focus on diagnosing, treating, and curing sarcoidosis linked to telomeres. Clinical investigations into treatments that enhance TL are warranted.

    Keywords: MR analysis, telomere length, Sarcoidosis, Casual association, Two-sample analysis

    Received: 29 Mar 2024; Accepted: 02 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhu, Ziyu, Chen, Liu, Wu, Luo and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Fang Zhang, Department of Science and Education, Shenzhen Baoan Women's and Children's Hospital, Shenzhen, China

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