The causal effect of autoimmune diseases on myelodysplastic syndrome:a Mendelian randomization study

Background The relationship between different types of autoimmune diseases and myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) are inconclusive. Therefore,we employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to explore the causal associations between autoimmune diseases and MDS. Methods Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with 10 autoimmune diseases were extracted from the summary statistics of European genome-wide association studies (GWAS). A two-sample MR analysis was performed using summary-level statistics sourced from GWAS datasets. Inverse-variance weighting (IVW),MR‒Egger,and weighted median (WM) were further supported by several sensitivity analyses. Results Four autoimmune diseases showed genetical predisposition to MDS: rheumatoid arthritis(OR = 1.186,95%CI = 1.028–1.367, P = 0.019), multiple sclerosis(OR = 1.247,95%CI = 1.013–1.534, P = 0.037), myasthenia gravis(OR = 1.326,95%CI = 1.010–1.742, P = 0.042), and hashimoto thyroiditis(OR = 1.519,95%CI = 1.008–2.290, P = 0.046).Nevertheless,no similar causal relationship was found between the remaining seven autoimmune diseases and MDS.The accuracy and robustness of these findings were confirmed by sensitivity tests. Conclusions We are the first to use MR analysis to explore the causal relationships between autoimmune diseases and MDS.The mechanism of this causal link needs to be further explored.