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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.

Sec. Microorganisms in Vertebrate Digestive Systems

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1420978

This article is part of the Research Topic Animal Models, Gut Microbiota and Brain Diseases View all 22 articles

Investigating the Causal Impact of Gut Microbiota on Trigeminal neuralgia: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study

Provisionally accepted
Chuan Zeng Chuan Zeng Chaolong Zhang Chaolong Zhang Yuxuan Jia Yuxuan Jia Huaiyu Zhou Huaiyu Zhou Haimin Song Haimin Song Chunming He Chunming He *
  • Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, China

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

    The etiology and pathogenesis of trigeminal neuralgia remain unclear. This study examines the connection between gut microbiota and trigeminal neuralgia using Mendelian randomization analysis to provide insights into the disorder's origin and propose potential therapies based on our findings.We used data from the MiBioGen consortium (13,266 participants) for gut microbiota and the IEU OpenGWAS project (800 cases, 195,047 controls) for trigeminal neuralgia. We checked for heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy and used the inverse variance weighting method as our main approach to study the causal link between gut bacteria and trigeminal neuralgia, MR-Egger, simple mode, weighted median, and weighted mode as supplementary methods, with a sensitivity test using leave-one-out analysis. If a bacteria-trigeminal neuralgia link was found, we conducted a reverse analysis for confirmation.Results: According to the final results, these groups include Butyricimonas (Genus, id=945, p-value=0.007, OR=1.742, 95% CI: 1.165-2.604), unknowngenus (Genus, id=1000005479, p-value=0.005, OR=1.774, 95% CI: 1.187-2.651) and Bacteroidales (Family, p-value=0.005, OR=1.774, 95% CI: 1.187-2.651) were causally associated with trigeminal neuralgia. No significant results according to reverse Mendelian randomization analysis.In our study, we identified specific gut bacteria linked to trigeminal neuralgia. To comprehensively understand their impact and mechanisms, additional randomized trials are necessary.

    Keywords: Trigeminal Neuralgia, Gut Microbiota, Mendelian randomization, causality, gut-brain axis

    Received: 13 May 2024; Accepted: 13 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Zeng, Zhang, Jia, Zhou, Song and He. 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: Chunming He, Gannan Medical University, Ganzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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