The associations between gut microbiota and chronic respiratory diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

INTRODUCTION: Growing evidence indicates that variations in the composition of the gut microbiota are linked to the onset and progression of chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs), albeit the causal relationship between the two remains unclear. METHODS: We conducted a comprehensive two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to investigate the relationship between gut microbiota and five main CRDs, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), sarcoidosis, and pneumoconiosis. For MR analysis, the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method was utilized as the primary method. The MR–Egger, weighted median, and MR-PRESSO statistical methods were used as a supplement. To detect heterogeneity and pleiotropy, the Cochrane and Rucker Q test, MR–Egger intercept test, and MR-PRESSO global test were then implemented. The leave-one-out strategy was also applied to assess the consistency of the MR results. RESULTS: Based on substantial genetic data obtained from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) comprising 3,504,473 European participants, our study offers evidence that several gut microbial taxa, including 14 probable microbial taxa (specifically, 5, 3, 2, 3 and 1 for COPD, asthma, IPF, sarcoidosis, and pneumoconiosis, respectively) and 33 possible microbial taxa (specifically, 6, 7, 8, 7 and 5 for COPD, asthma, IPF, sarcoidosis, and pneumoconiosis, respectively) play significant roles in the formation of CRDs. DISCUSSION: This work implies causal relationships between the gut microbiota and CRDs, thereby shedding new light on the gut microbiota-mediated prevention of CRDs.