Evaluating the causal effect of circulating proteome on the risk of osteoarthritis-related traits

This study aims to identify circulating proteins that are causally associated with osteoarthritis (OA)-related traits through Mendelian randomisation (MR)-based analytical framework.

Large-scale two-sample MR was employed to estimate the effects of thousands of plasma proteins on 12 OA-related traits. Additional analyses including Bayesian colocalisation, Steiger filtering analysis, assessment of protein-altering variants and mapping expression quantitative trait loci to protein quantitative trait loci were performed to investigate the reliability of the MR findings; protein-protein interaction, pathway enrichment analysis and evaluation of drug targets were conducted to deepen the understanding and identify potential therapeutic targets of OA.

Dozens of circulating proteins were identified to have putatively causal effects on OA-related traits, and a majority of these proteins were either drug targets or considered druggable.

Through MR analysis, we have identified numerous plasma proteins associated with OA-related traits, shedding light on protein-mediated mechanisms and offering promising therapeutic targets for OA.