Study on the impact of gut microbiota on dental caries based on Mendelian randomization analysis
WANG Ya-xin
HU Li
QIAO Liang
ZHOU Li-qun
ZHAO Jia-jia
Abstract：Objective To investigate the effects of gut microbiota on dental caries using Mendelian randomization analy-sis,providing a reference for developing prevention and treatment strategies for dental caries.Methods This study was conducted from January 2024 to March 2024 at the School of Stomatology,Tongji Medical College,Huazhong University of Science and Technology.Genome-wide association study(GW AS)data of gut microbiota were obtained from the MiBio-Gen consortium,and single nucleotide polymorphism significantly associated with 196 gut microbiota taxa were selected as instrumental variables.GW AS summary data related to dental caries,including the datasets finn-b-K11_CARIES,ukb-b-4770,and ukb-d-K02,were extracted from the IEU database.The inverse variance-weighted(I VW)meth-od was used to assess the causal effects between gut micro-biota and dental caries,supplemented by MR-Egger and weighted median(WM)analyses.Sensitivity analyses were performed using Cochran Q test and MR-Egger intercept test.Results The IVW analysis identified 22 gut micro-biota taxa potentially associated with dental caries.Among them,Family ⅩⅢ,Veillonellaceae,Christensenellaceae,Rumi-nococcaceae,RuminococcaceaeUCG014,Howardella,Escherichia-Shigella were potential protective factors for dental car-ies(all OR＜1,P＜0.05).The other 15 taxa,including Euryarchaeota,Erysipelotrichia,Enterobacteriales,Pasteurellales,Erysipelotrichales,Lachnospiraceae,Pasteurellaceae,Enterobacteriaceae,Rikenellaceae,Erysipelotrichaceae,Oxalobacter,Eubacterium brachygroup,Terrisporobacter,Peptococcus and Sellimonas were identified as possible risk factors for dental caries(all OR＞1,P＜0.05).WM and MR-Egger analyses did not reveal statistically significant differences for these 22 taxa(all P＞0.05).Sensitivity analyses showed no heterogeneity or horizontal pleiotropy among the 22 taxa associated with dental caries(all P＞0.05).Conclusion Gut microbiota has a dual effect on dental caries,acting as both protec-tive and risk factors.The specific mechanisms underlying these effects require further investigation.
Keywords：gut microbiotadental cariesMendelian randomization analysis
Publication Date：2025-02-27
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：8( 67-74 )