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Updated: Jun 18, 2025
Robust Ligature-Induced Model of Murine Periodontitis for the Evaluation of Oral Neutrophils
Published on: January 21, 2020
Mendelian Randomization Reveals No Causal Association Between Periodontitis and Infective Endocarditis
Rui-Lin Liu1, Yu-Ping Ou2, Qian Zhang3
1Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Central South University, Changsha, China.
Objectives:
Clarifying the uncertain causal relationship between periodontitis and infective endocarditis using Mendelian randomization analysis, given their historically perceived association and clinical significance.
Methods:
Genetic variation data for acute periodontitis, chronic periodontitis, aggressive periodontitis, and infective endocarditis were obtained from published GWAS in individuals of European ancestry. Instrumental variables significantly associated with periodontitis were selected and univariable Mendelian randomization was conducted to infer the causal association between periodontitis and infective endocarditis. Multivariable Mendelian randomization was also performed to adjust for potential confounders including smoking, drinking, diabetes, and education.
Results:
Our analysis found no evidence of a causal association between periodontitis and infective endocarditis, with odds ratios (ORs) of 0.992 (95% CI: 0.879-1.120), 0.947 (95% CI: 0.738-1.214), and 1.056 (95% CI: 0.916-1.217) for acute periodontitis, chronic periodontitis, aggressive periodontitis, respectively. The robustness of our findings was confirmed by heterogeneity tests, pleiotropy tests, leave-one-out analyses, and MR-PRESSO. In the multivariable MR analysis, adjusting for smoking, drinking, diabetes, and education, the overall patterns between genetic liability to periodontitis and infective endocarditis remained consistent (all P > .05).
Conclusion:
Our findings indicate that there is no genetic causal association between periodontitis and infective endocarditis.
