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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutritional Immunology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1433545
This article is part of the Research Topic Nutritional Factors in the Development and Prognosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) View all 3 articles

The causal relationship between immune cell-mediated gut microbiota and ulcerative colitis: a bidirectional two-sample, mediation Mendelian randomization analysis

Provisionally accepted
Jinyin Xiao Jinyin Xiao 1,2Xiajun Guo Xiajun Guo 3*Lin Youwei Lin Youwei 2Zhenquan Wang Zhenquan Wang 1*
  • 1 The Second Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Anhui Province, China
  • 2 Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Anhui Province, China
  • 3 The First People's Hospital of Xiangtan City, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China

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

    Background: Numerous studies have highlighted the close association between gut microbiota and the development of ulcerative colitis (UC), yet research on whether immune cells mediate this process remains scarce. This study utilizes various Mendelian randomization (MR) methods to investigate the causal relationship between gut microbiota and UC, further exploring the mediating role of immune cells in this process.Methods: Genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics for 473 gut microbiota, 731 immune cell phenotypes, and UC were obtained from the GWAS catalog database. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were used as instrumental variables (IV) to validate the causal relationship between gut microbiota and UC through two-sample MR and Bayesian weighted MR (BWMR), and reverse MR was employed to explore the presence of reverse causal effects.The study revealed a causal relationship between 20 gut microbiota and UC, with 14 microbiota acting as protective factors for UC and 6 as risk factors. Mediation MR identified 26 immune cell mediators, among which the association between CD11b on Mo MDSC and Bifidobacterium bifidum (B. bifidum) was most significant (P=0.0017, OR=1.4540, 95% CI: 1.1504-1.8378). Mediation MR analysis indicated that the mediation effect of CD11b on Mo MDSC between B. bifidum and UC was -0.0385, with a mediation effect ratio of 16.67%.There is a clear causal relationship between certain gut microbiota and UC, and CD11b on Mo MDSC is a significant mediator between B. bifidum and UC, providing new insights for the clinical treatment of UC.

    Keywords: Gut Microbiota, immune cells, ulcerative colitis, Mediation analysis, Mendelian randomization

    Received: 16 May 2024; Accepted: 09 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xiao, Guo, Youwei and Wang. 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:
    Xiajun Guo, The First People's Hospital of Xiangtan City, Xiangtan, Hunan Province, China
    Zhenquan Wang, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Anhui Province, China

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