Mendelian randomisation analysis to discover plasma metabolites mediating the effect of obesity on cancer risk

Obesity is a risk factor for several cancers, but the mechanistic basis is poorly understood. We sought to identify circulating metabolites mediating the effect of obesity on the risk of eight common cancers.

Using European ancestry data, we applied two-sample Mendelian randomisation (2S-MR) to screen 856 plasma metabolites for associations with body mass index (BMI) and waist-hip ratio (WHR). Metabolite GWAS data were sourced from INTERVAL, and obesity traits from the GIANT consortium and UK Biobank. We assessed the impact of obesity-associated metabolites on cancer risk (384,738 cases across eight cancer types and 799,908 controls) and conducted mediation analyses to identify potential mediators of obesity-driven cancer risk.

MR analysis yielded 107 BMI-driven metabolites and 126 WHR-driven metabolites. The strongest relationships with cancer risk were between levels of obesity-driven 1-linoleoyl-GPC, 2-linoleoyl-GPC, 1,2-dilinoleoyl-GPC, 1-arachidonoyl-GPA, and 1-pentadecanoyl-2-linoleoyl-GPC and colorectal cancer (CRC). Additional associations were found between obesity-driven metabolites and breast cancer risk. Mediation analysis implicated multiple metabolites as potential mediators of obesity-driven CRC and breast cancer risk.

As well as these findings highlighting how obesity-related metabolic changes influence cancer risk, our observations suggest potential interventional targets.