Causal relationship between gut microbiota and myasthenia gravis: a bidirectional mendelian randomization study

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have demonstrated an association between gut microbiota and myasthenia gravis; however, the causal relationship between the two still lacks clarity. Our goals are to ascertain the existence of a bidirectional causal relationship between gut microbiota composition and myasthenia gravis, and to investigate how gut microbiota plays a role in reducing the risk of myasthenia gravis. METHODS: We acquired gut microbiota data at the phylum, class, order, family, and genus levels from the MiBioGen consortium (N = 18,340) and myasthenia gravis data from the FinnGen Research Project (426 cases and 373,848 controls). In the two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis, we assessed the causal relationship between the gut microbiota and myasthenia gravis. We also conducted bidirectional MR analysis to determine the direction of causality. The inverse variance weighted, mendelian randomization-Egger, weighted median, simple mode, and weighted mode were used to test the causal relationship between the gut microbiota and severe myasthenia gravis. We used MR-Egger intercept and Cochran's Q test to assess for pleiotropy and heterogeneity, respectively. Furthermore, we utilized the MR-PRESSO method to evaluate horizontal pleiotropy and detect outliers. RESULTS: In the forward analysis, the inverse-variance weighted method revealed that there is a positive correlation between the genus Lachnoclostridium (OR = 2.431,95%CI 1.047–5.647, p = 0.039) and the risk of myasthenia gravis. Additionally, the family Clostridiaceae1 (OR = 0.424,95%CI 0.202–0.889, p = 0.023), family Defluviitaleaceae (OR = 0.537,95%CI 0.290–0.995, p = 0.048), family Enterobacteriaceae (OR = 0.341,95%CI 0.135–0.865, p = 0.023), and an unknown genus (OR = 0.407,95%CI 0.209–0.793, p = 0.008) all demonstrated negative correlation with the risk of developing myasthenia gravis. Futhermore, reversed Mendelian randomization analysis proved a negative correlation between the risk of myasthenia gravis and genus Barnesiella (OR = 0.945,95%CI 0.906–0.985, p = 0.008). CONCLUSION: Our research yielded evidence of a causality connection in both directions between gut microbiota and myasthenia gravis. We identified specific types of microbes associated with myasthenia gravis, which offers a fresh window into the pathogenesis of this disease and the possibility of developing treatment strategies. Nonetheless, more studies, both basic and clinical, are necessary to elucidate the precise role and therapeutic potential of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13578-023-01163-8.