Genetic evidence for a causal link between gut microbiota and arterial embolism and thrombosis: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

BackgroundPrevious research has hinted at a crucial link between gut microbiota and arterial embolism and thrombosis, yet the causal relationship remains enigmatic. To gain a deeper understanding, we aimed to comprehensively explore the causal relationship and elucidate the impact of the gut microbiota on the risk through a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study.MethodsGenetic instrumental variables for gut microbiota were identified from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 18,340 participants. Summary statistics for IBS were drawn from a GWAS including 1,076 cases and 381,997 controls. We used the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method as the primary analysis. To test the robustness of our results, we further performed the weighted median method, MR-Egger regression, and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier test.ResultsWe identified three bacterial traits that were associated with the risk of arterial embolism and thrombosis: odds ratio (OR): 1.58, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08–2.31, p = 0.017 for genus Catenibacterium; OR: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.42–0.96, p = 0.031 for genus Dialister; and OR: 2.08, 95% CI: 1.25–3.47, p = 0.005 for genus Odoribacter. The results of sensitivity analyses for these bacterial traits were consistent (P