Association between circulating unsaturated fatty acid and preeclampsia: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

Abstract

Objective

In recent years, several studies have reported an association between unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) and the risk of developing preeclampsia; however, its exact causal effect is unclear. This study assessed the causal association between circulating UFAs and preeclampsia.

Methods

A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study using publicly available genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary data for circulating UFA s (N = 114,999) and preeclampsia (N = 118,291) was performed. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with exposure was selected as instrumental variables (IVs). The inverse variance weighted (IVW) test was used as the primary method for estimating causality in MR analysis, while MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) and MR-Egger regression methods were used to assess horizontal pleiotropy. Cochran’s Q test was used to evaluate heterogeneity among SNPs, and leave-one-out sensitivity analysis was used to determine the effect of individual SNPs on the results of the MR analysis. Bonferroni correction was used as a correction for multiple corrections.

Results

Two-sample MR analysis suggested that the ratio of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) to total fatty acids (OR 1.150, 95% CI 1.006–1.315, p = 0.041), the ratio of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to total fatty acids (OR 0.805, 95% CI 0.658–0.986, p = 0.036) and the ratio of PUFAs to MUFAs (OR 0.807, 95% CI 0.694–0.938, p = 0.005) were causally associated with preeclampsia. After Bonferroni correction, the causal association between the ratio of polyunsaturated to MUFAs and preeclampsia remained statistically different.

Conclusions

This MR analysis provides evidence for a genetic causal association between circulating UFAs and preeclampsia.

Keywords:

• Pregnancy
• unsaturated fatty acid
• preeclampsia
• Mendelian randomization
• causality

Acknowledgments

We thank Professor Ding Hongjuan for her support in this research.

Authors’ contributions

W.Y. was responsible for study design, data extraction and analysis, and article writing. L.S. and W.C. were responsible for the study design and direction. Y.H. and J.X. were responsible for study design, revision, paper review, guidance, and funding.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Our study did not collect original data but used publicly available GWAS summary data; therefore, ethics committee approval was not required.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Xuzhou Science and Technology Innovation Project (No. KC21247).