AUTHOR=Zhu Shiben , Hao Ziyu , Chen Qihang , Liu Xiaoliu , Wu Wenyan , Luo Yanping , Zhang Fang 

TITLE=Casual effects of telomere length on sarcoidosis: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2024.1408980

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2024.1408980

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Background</title><p>Telomere length, crucial for genomic stability, have been implicated in various inflamm-aging diseases, but their role in sarcoidosis remains unexplored.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Objective</title><p>This study aims to explore the casual effects between TL and sarcoidosis via a bidirectional Mendelian Randomization (MR) study.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Methods</title><p>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 Weighted (IVW), MR Egger, weighted median (WM), Robust adjusted profile score (RAPS), and Maximum likelihood, to assess causal relationships and explore pleiotropy.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Results</title><p>Summary data extracted from GWAS datasets of TL (<italic>n</italic> = 472,174) and (<italic>n</italic> = 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, <inline-formula><mml:math id="M1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>p</mml:mi><mml:mo>:</mml:mo></mml:math></inline-formula> 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, <inline-formula><mml:math id="M2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>p</mml:mi></mml:math></inline-formula>: 0.2424).</p></sec><sec id="sec5"><title>Conclusion</title><p>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.</p></sec>