Causal effects of gut microbiota on scoliosis: A Mendelian randomization study

Abstract Background Recent studies have shown altered gut microbiome composition in patients with scoliosis. However, the causal effect of gut microbiota on scoliosis remains unknown. Methods A Mendelian randomization (MR) study was conducted to quantify the impact of 191 gut microbiome taxa's instrumental variables from the MibioGen Genome-wide association study (GWAS) on scoliosis risk using data from the FinnGen GWAS (1,168 cases and 16,4682 controls). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) was the main method, and MR results were verified by sensitive analysis. Results Bilophila, Eubacterium (eligens group), Prevotella9, and Ruminococcus2 were discovered to have a protective effect on the risk of scoliosis. Ruminococcaceae UCG009, Catenibacterium, Coprococcus2, Eubacterium (ventriosum group), Lachnospiraceae (FCS020 group), Ruminiclostridium6, and Mollicutes RF9 may increase the occurrence of scoliosis. Heterogeneity (P > 0.05) and pleiotropy (P > 0.05) analysis confirmed the robustness of the MR results. Conclusion Our study identified four protective bacteria taxa on scoliosis and seven microbiota that may increase scoliosis occurrence. Further MR analysis is required to corroborate our findings, using a more sophisticated technique to obtain estimates with less bias and greater precision or GWAS summary data with more gut microbiome and scoliosis patients.