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Vitamin D level and risk of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis: a Mendelian randomization

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine whether the vitamin D level is causally associated with risk of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) or rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We performed two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses using the inverse-variance weighted (IVW), weighted median, and MR-Egger regression methods on publicly available summary statistics datasets using two vitamin D level genome-wide association studies (GWASs) as exposure and SLE and RA GWASs on people of European descent as outcomes. We selected three independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms located at SSTR4 (rs2207173), GC (rs2282679), and NADSYN1 (3829251) with genome-wide significance from two GWASs on vitamin D levels as instrumental variables. The IVW, weighted median, and MR-Egger regression methods yielded no evidence of a causal association between vitamin D level and risk of SLE (beta = 0.032, SE = 0.119, p = 0.789; beta = 0.233, SE = 0.274, p = 0.552; beta = 0.054, SE = 0.125, p = 0.665; respectively) or RA (beta = 0.026, SE = 0.061, p = 0.664; beta = 0.025, SE = 0.065, p = 0.695; beta = 0.025, SE = 0.065, p = 0.695; respectively). In addition, MR-Egger regression revealed directional pleiotropy was unlikely to be biasing the result for SLE (intercept = − 0.058, p = 0.545) or RA (intercept = − 0.027, p = 0.558). The MR estimates from IVW, weighted median, and MR-Egger regression analyses were consistent. MR analysis did not support a causal association between the vitamin D level and SLE or RA.

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Funding

This study was supported in part by a grant of the Korea Healthcare Technology R&D Project, Ministry for Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (HI15C2958).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rheumatology, Hanyang University Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Seoul, South Korea

    Sang-Cheol Bae

  2. Department of Rheumatology, Korea University College of Medicine, 73, Inchon-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, South Korea

    Young Ho Lee

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  1. Sang-Cheol Bae
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Correspondence to Young Ho Lee.

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Bae, SC., Lee, Y.H. Vitamin D level and risk of systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis: a Mendelian randomization. Clin Rheumatol 37, 2415–2421 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-018-4152-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-018-4152-9

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