Genetic predisposition to allergic rhinitis in relation to 11
psychiatric disorders
Abstract
Background: Growing evidence from observational studies
suggests a link between
Allergic [rhinitis](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/rhinitis) (AR)
and psychiatric disorders; whether these associations represent causal
relationships remains uncertain. Methods: We performed
bi-directional two-sample mendelian randomization (MR) using summary
statistics from European genome-wide association studies to examine
evidence of causality, specificity and direction of association of AR
with 11 different psychiatric disorders or relevant traits. MR was
conducted using the inverse-variance weighted method (IVW), MR-Egger and
weighted median methods. Sensitivity analyses included the MR-Egger
regression and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier test.
Results: AR from 2 different GWAS data was positively
associated with bipolar disorder (OR=1.649, 95% CI: 1.077-2.526;
P=0.021; OR=1.599; 95%CI 1.058-2.417; P=0.026). AR was also associated
with major depressive disorder (OR=1.539; 95%CI 1.007-2.353; P=0.047).
There were no significant association between AR and other 9 psychiatric
disorders. Bidirectional analyses showed that bipolar disorder is
negatively associated with AR (OR=0.964; 95%CI: 0.936-0.993; P=0.015).
There was no evidence for potential causal schizophrenia and effects of
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder on risk of AR by MR method,
but, MR pleiotropy residual outlier test suggested that attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder is negatively associated with AR after
outlier correction (OR=0.976, 95%CI: 0.958-0.995, P=0.012).
Conclusions: This MR study indicated that AR was a causal risk
factor for bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, but not for
other psychiatric disorders. Bipolar disorder and attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder may be a protective factor for AR.
Further studies could be carried out to leverage these new found insight
into better clinical and experimental research in AR and psychiatric
disorders.