Causal association of circulating cytokines with sarcopenia-related traits: A Mendelian randomization study

Observational studies have reported that circulating cytokines are associated with sarcopenia. However, the causal relationship between circulating cytokines and sarcopenia has not been elucidated.

This study aimed to investigate the causal relationship between circulating cytokines and sarcopenia with genetic data using Mendelian randomization (MR).

Two-sample bidirectional MR analysis was performed to investigate the causal relationship in individuals of European ancestry. The publicly available genome-wide association study statistics were used to select the key eligible single nucleotide polymorphisms significantly associated with circulating cytokines. Multiple MR analysis approaches, including inverse variance weighted (IVW), MR-Egger, weighted median method (WMM), and MR-Pleiotropy residual Sum and Outlier (MR-PRESSO) methods, were used for the analysis. Sarcopenia-related traits were appendicular lean mass (ALM) and grip strength.

This study demonstrated the causal effect of genetically predicted circulating interleukin interleukin-16 (IL16) levels on both ALM [odds ratio (OR) = 0.990, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.980-1.000, P = 0.049] and grip strength (OR = 0.971, 95% CI: 0.948-0.995, P = 0.020]. Additionally, C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10), interleukin-1beta (IL1B), and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) were correlated with ALM, while vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), interleukin-12 (IL12), and interleukin-15 (IL15) were correlated with grip strength. The results of MR-Egger, weighted median, weighted mode, and simple mode methods were consistent with the IVW estimates. Sensitivity analysis revealed that horizontal pleiotropy did not bias the causal estimates.

These findings indicate that inflammatory cytokines exert a significant causal effect on sarcopenia and provide promising leads for the development of novel therapeutic targets for the disease. By evaluating the role of circulating cytokines in the pathologic condition via a genetic epidemiological approach, our study made contributions to a further investigation of underlying mechanisms of sarcopenia.