Aging · Dec 15, 2020

Mendelian randomization study of telomere length and bone mineral density

By Wu F, Huang Y, Hu J et al.

PURPOSE: Some epidemiological studies and animal studies have reported a relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and bone mineral density (BMD). However, the causality underlying the purported relationship has not been determined. Here we performed a two-sample MR analysis to test the causal link between telomere length and BMD. RESULTS: Our research suggested no causal link of LTL and BMD using IVW method. The weighted median, MR-Egger regression and MR.RAPS method yielded a similar pattern of effects. MR-Egger intercept test demonstrated our results were not influenced by pleiotropy. Heterogeneities among the genetic variants on heel estimated BMD and TB-BMD vanished after excluding rs6028466. "Leave-one-out" sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability of our results. CONCLUSION: Our MR analysis did not support causal effect of telomere length on BMD. METHODS: We utilized 5 independent SNPs robustly associated with LTL as instrument variables. The outcome results were obtained from GWAS summary data of BMD. The two-sample MR analysis was conducted using IVW, weighted median, MR-Egger regression and MR.RAPS method. MR-Egger intercept test, Cochran's Q test and I² statistics and "leave-one-out" sensitivity analysis were performed to evaluate the horizontal pleiotropy, heterogeneities and stability of these genetic variants on BMD.

doi.org/10.18632/aging.202197 Open access PubMed 33323545 Mechanisms