Two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis of the causal relationship between T．gondii infection and encephalitis / 安徽医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective @#Mendelian randomization analysis was used to explore the causal relationship of T．gondii in- fection and the cyst distribution and inflammation in brain tissue by immunohistochemistry．@*Methods @#Genome- wide association analysis data of T．gondii infection and encephalitis were obtained ，single nucleotide polymor- phisms (SNPs) were selected，Mendelian randomization analysis was conducted by inverse variance weighting，and the causal relationship between T．gondii infection and encephalitis was evaluated by OR value and 95% CI．Quality control was carried out by using heterogeneity test，horizontal multi-efficiency test and leave-one-out sensitivity test. Immunohistochemical staining was performed using brain sections of mice infected with tissue cysts of Wh6 strain for image analysis using Image J software. @*Results @#A total of 29 SNPs were associated with toxoplasmic encephalitis. The results of IVW method suggested that T．gondii infection made encephalitis risk 0. 98 times higher ( OR = 0. 98， 95% CI = 0. 76 to 1. 27) ，indicating no causal relationship between the two．The quality control results suggested that the selected SNPs were stable and reliable．Toxoplasma cysts were distributed in various parts of the brain tis- sue．@*Conclusion @# T．gondii infection and encephalitis are related，but there is no sufficient evidence to prove the causal relationship between the two.