Causal relationship between iron status and preeclampsia-eclampsia: a Mendelian randomization analysis

• Published in: Clinical and experimental hypertension (1993) 2024-12, Vol.46 (1), p.2321148-2321148
• Main Authors: Yang, Xiaofeng, Wei, Jiachun, Sun, Lu, Zhong, Qimei, Zhai, Xiaoxuan, Chen, Ya, Luo, Shujuan, Tang, Chunyan, Wang, Lan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: causal relationship; Eclampsia; Female; genetic variants; Genome-Wide Association Study; Humans; Iron; iron status; Mendelian randomization; Mendelian Randomization Analysis; Pre-Eclampsia; preeclampsia; Pregnancy
• ISSN: 1064-1963; 1525-6006
• DOI: 10.1080/10641963.2024.2321148

Preeclampsia/eclampsia is a severe pregnancy-related disorder associated with hypertension and organ damage. While observational studies have suggested a link between maternal iron status and preeclampsia/eclampsia, the causal relationship remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic causality between iron status and preeclampsia/eclampsia using large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary data and Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Summary data for the GWAS on preeclampsia/eclampsia and genetic markers related to iron status were obtained from the FinnGen Consortium and the IEU genetic databases. The "TwoSampleMR" software package in R was employed to test the genetic causality between these markers and preeclampsia/eclampsia. The inverse variance weighted (IVW) method was primarily used for MR analysis. Heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy, and potential outliers were evaluated for the MR analysis results. The random-effects IVW results showed that ferritin (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: .89-1.38,  = .341), serum iron (OR = .90, 95% CI: .75-1.09,  = .275), TIBC (OR = .98, 95% CI: .89-1.07,  = .613), and TSAT (OR = .94, 95% CI: .83-1.07,  = .354) have no genetic causal relationship with preeclampsia/eclampsia. There was no evidence of heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy, or possible outliers in our MR analysis (  > .05). Our study did not detect a genetic causal relationship between iron status and preeclampsia/eclampsia. Nonetheless, this does not rule out a relationship between the two at other mechanistic levels.