Causal relationship between immune cells and osteoarthritis: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Objective: Little research hasn't been done on the connection between immune cells and osteoarthritis. To investigate the pathogenic and protective roles of immune cells in osteoarthritis risk, Mendelian randomization was employed in this study. Method: The study employed a two-sample Mendelian randomization methodology to determine the causal relationship between 731 immune cells and osteoarthritis. The exposure was genome-wide association research including 731 immune cells, and the outcome was seven distinct osteoarthritis phenotypes: osteoarthritis at any site, knee, hip, spine, hand, thumb, and finger. Causal estimates were calculated using inverse variance weighting. In addition, MR-Egger, weighted median, weighted mode, and simple mode were used to ensure reliability. In addition, methods including the Cochran Q, leave-one-out, MR-Egger intercept, and MR-Presso tests were used for sensitivity analyses. R software was used for all statistical analyses. Result: 166 suggestive relationships between 731 immune cells and various osteoarthritischaracteristics were found in the MR study. Upon applying the Bonferroni correction to the original screening of 166 immune cells, we discovered that eight immune cells had a strong causal relationship with six osteoarthritis phenotypes. Furthermore, a bidirectional causal link between the six immune cells and the six osteoarthritisphenotypes was discovered by a reverse MR analysis. Conclusion: Based on our study, the immune cells and mechanisms identified may be valuable immune markers for clinical screening and prevention of osteoarthritis. They may also be potential targets for future therapeutic drug discovery.