Inflammatory cytokine profiles in erectile dysfunction: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization

Front Immunol. 2024 Apr 12:15:1342658. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1342658. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Objectives: Inflammatory cytokines (ICs) play an important role in erectile dysfunction (ED). Previous studies have demonstrated that most ED patients have high levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-8 (IL-8). The causality between 41 ICs and ED is investigated using the Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.

Methods: Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) exposure data of 41 ICs came from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 8293 subjects. At the same time, the FINNGEN R9 database provided the ED outcome data containing 2205 ED patients and 164104 controls. MR-Egger (ME), inverse variance weighting (IVW), and weighted median (WM) were applied to conduct the MR study and IVW was taken as the main criterion.

Results: From a genetic perspective, the increase of interferon-inducible protein-10 (IP-10) level significantly increased the risk of ED (P=0.043, odds ratio (OR)=1.269, 95% confidence interval (95%CI): 1.007-1.600), while the increase of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA) markedly decreased the risk of ED (P=0.037, OR=0.768, 95%CI: 0.600-0.984). Meanwhile, IP-10 (p=0.099) and IL-1RA (p=0.135) failed to demonstrate causality in reverse MR analysis.

Conclusions: Changes in ICs levels will significantly affect the risk of ED, especially IP-10 as a risk component for ED and IL-1RA as a protective component for ED. In the future, we can achieve targeted treatment and prevention of ED by intervening with specific inflammatory factors.

Keywords: IL-1ra; IP-10; bidirectional Mendelian randomization; erectile dysfunction; inflammatory cytokine.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Chemokine CXCL10 / genetics
  • Cytokines* / genetics
  • Erectile Dysfunction* / genetics
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Genome-Wide Association Study*
  • Humans
  • Inflammation Mediators / metabolism
  • Male
  • Mendelian Randomization Analysis*
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide*

Substances

  • Cytokines
  • Inflammation Mediators
  • Chemokine CXCL10
  • CXCL10 protein, human

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Our research was sponsored by projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China 81972412 and Tianjin Institute of Urology Talent Funding Project MYSRC202316.