Mendelian randomization study of causal link from gut microbiota to colorectal cancer

Recent studies have shown the relevance of gut microbiota in the occurrence and development of colorectal cancer (CRC), but the causal relationship remains unclear in the human population. The present study aims to assess the causal relationship from the gut microbiota to CRC and to identify specific causal microbe taxa via genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics based two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses. Microbiome GWAS (MGWAS) in the TwinsUK 1,126 twin pairs was used as discovery exposure sample, and MGWAS in 1,812 northern German participants was used as replication exposure sample. GWAS of CRC in 387,156 participants from the UK Biobank (UKB) was used as the outcome sample. Bacteria were grouped into taxa features at both family and genus levels. In the discovery sample, a total of 30 bacteria features including 15 families and 15 genera were analyzed. Five features, including 2 families (Verrucomicrobiaceae and Enterobacteriaceae) and 3 genera (Akkermansia, Blautia, and Ruminococcus), were nominally significant. In the replication sample, the genus Blautia (discovery beta=-0.01, P = 0.04) was successfully replicated (replication beta=-0.18, P = 0.01) with consistent effect direction. Our findings identified genus Blautia that was causally associated with CRC, thus offering novel insights into the microbiota-mediated CRC development mechanism.