Causal Link between ApoB and Osteoporosis: a Mendelian Randomized Study

• 1、Center for Genetic Epidemiology and Genomics, School of Public Health, Medical College of Soochow University

Abstract：Objective: Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) as the main apolipoprotein of low density lipoproteins (LDL), plays important role in cell recognition and uptake of LDL. Previous studies have established the statistical associations between ApoB and BMD, but have not made causal inference. Methods: Based on the downloaded genome wide association study (GWAS) data for ApoB and BMD, two-sample Mendelian randomization method was used to infer their causal link. Results: The inverse-variance weighting (IVW) method estimated that the β value of ApoB and BMD is 0.016 (95% CI: 0.003 ~ 0.029, P <0.05), suggesting that for each standard deviation of ApoB, BMD increases by 1.6%. MR-Egger regression results showed that genetic pleiotropy failed to shift the results (intercept = 0.001, P = 0.601). The sensitivity analyses showed that that the β is stable at 0.016. Conclusion: These results showed there exists a causal link between ApoB on BMD. Our result provided useful information in the prediction of osteoporosis risk and the clinical relevance of ApoB on BMD variation.

Keywords： Mendelian randomization ApoB Bone mineral density Causal effect