AUTHOR=Zhang Xiao , Chen Jiang , He Feng , Du Wenchun , Yu Xianhao 

TITLE=Assessing the causal effects of Eubacterium and Rumphococcus on constipation: a Mendelian randomized study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=15

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1376232

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2024.1376232

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Background</title><p>Constipation is affected by a number of risk variables, including cardiovascular disease and growth factors. However, the impacts of gut flora on constipation incidence has not been shown. This work, Single-Variable Mendelian Randomization (SVMR) was utilized to estimate the causal relationship between the <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> or <italic>Rumphococcus</italic>, and constipation.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>Data for constipation, <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> and <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> were taken from the Integrated Epidemiology Unit (IEU) open GWAS database. Including 218,792 constipation samples, and there were 16,380,466 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) for constipation. The ids of <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> and <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> were sourced from MiBioGen database. The sample count for the <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> was 17,380, with 656 SNPs. In addition, the sample size for <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> was 15,339, with 545 SNPs. The SVMR was performed to assess the risk of <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> and <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> in constipation using weighted median, MR Egger, simple mode, inverse variance weighted (IVW), and weighted mode. Finally, we did a sensitivity analysis that included a heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy, and Leave-One-Out (LOO) test to examine the viability of the MR data.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>The SVMR revealed that the <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> and <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> were causally connected to constipation, with <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> (<italic>P</italic> = 0.042, OR = 1.074) as a hazardous factor and <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> (<italic>P</italic> = 0.004, OR = 0.909) as a safety factor. Sensitivity tests then revealed the absence of variability between the constipation and the exposure factors (<italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> and <italic>Rumphococcus</italic>). Additionally, there were no other confounding factors and the examined SNPs could only influence constipation through the aforementioned exposure factors, respectively. As a result, the MR results were fairly robust.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Our investigation verified the causal links between the <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic> or <italic>Rumphococcus</italic>, and constipation, with greater <italic>Rumphococcus</italic> expression increasing the likelihood of constipation and the opposite being true for the <italic>Eubacterium genus</italic>.</p></sec>