Relationship between gut microbiota and intussusception: an analysis based on Mendelian randomization

Objective: To explore the causal relationship between intestinal microbiome and intussusception utilizing two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) method. Methods Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) significance level data of 211 intestinal microbiome selected from the MiBioGen consortium were used as instrumental variables, and the genetic associations with intussusception was obtained from FinnGen consortium based on intestinal condyloma susceptibility genes. Inverse variance weighting (IVW), MR-Egger, Weighted median, Weighted mode and MR-PRESSO methods were used to explore the causal relationship between intestinal microbiome and intussusception. Results The inverse variance weighted results showed that Bifidobacterium was inversely associated with the risk of intussusception (OR: 0.376, 95% CI: 0.157–0.899). In addition, Ruminococcustorques group (OR: 4.461, 95% CI: 1.058–18.807), Adlercreutzia (OR: 3.893, 95% CI: 1.318–11.502), Allisonella (OR: 1.715, 95% CI: 1.009–2.915), and Clostridiumsensustricto1 (OR: 2.974, 95% CI: 1.046–8.451) suggested an increased risk association with intussusception. Conclusions The present MR study indicated that Bifidobacterium reduces the risk of intussusception and postoperative recurrent intussusception. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to elucidate the protective effects of probiotics on the development of intussusception as well as their specific protective mechanisms.