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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neuroepidemiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1411541

Causal Links Between Blood Inflammation Markers and Postherpetic Neuralgia Risk: Insights from a Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study

Provisionally accepted
Yu Wang Yu Wang 1Tian Jia Tian Jia 2*
  • 1 Department of Pharmacy, First Hospital of Northwest University, Xi’an, China
  • 2 Department of Pediatrics, First Hospital of Northwest University, Xian, China

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

    Abstract Introduction: Previous studies have suggested an association between blood inflammation-related factors and postherpetic neuralgia. However, the causal relationship between blood inflammation-related factors and postherpetic neuralgia remains unclear. Methods: We employed a bidirectional Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to explore the causal relationship between blood inflammation-related factors and postherpetic neuralgia. The instrumental variables were obtained from a large Genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis dataset of European descent. The instrumental variables of the blood inflammation-related factors come from the database numbers GCST004420 to GCST004460 and GCST90029070. Postherpetic neuralgia has 195,191 samples with a total of 16,380,406 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). MR analyses were performed using inverse-variance weighted, MR-Egger, and weighted median methods. Results: The MR results revealed a significant causal effect of Macrophage Inflammatory Protein 1 Beta (MIP1β) on reduding the risk of postherpetic neuralgia (95%CI = 0.492 to 0.991, p = 0.044). Additionally, higher levels of interleukin (IL)-10 (95%CI =0. 973 to 0.998, p = 0.019) and IL-12p70 (95%CI =0. 973 to 0.997, p = 0.013) were associated with a lower risk of postherpetic neuralgia. Other inflammatory markers showed no significant causal relationship with this condition. Conclusion: This study identifies MIP1β, IL-10, and IL-12p70 as potential therapeutic targets for preventing or treating postherpetic neuralgia, underscoring the need for further research in this area.

    Keywords: Mendelian randomization, postherpetic neuralgia, Blood inflammation, genetic variants, MIP1β, IL-10, IL-12p70

    Received: 03 Apr 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang and Jia. 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: Tian Jia, Department of Pediatrics, First Hospital of Northwest University, Xian, China

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