“…Mendelian randomization of selected instrumental variables for genetic variation must be based on three fundamental assumptions: the correlation hypothesis, which postulates a strong correlation between SNPs and exposure factors; the independence hypothesis, which asserts that SNPs are not affected by various confounders; and the exclusivity hypothesis, which argues that SNPs affect the outcome only through exposure factors 25 , 26 . In our study, IVs for each immune phenotype were identified with a stringent significance threshold of 5e-8, employing PLINK (v1.90) for SNP trimming based on linkage disequilibrium (LD; r2 < 0.001 within a 10,000 kb radius).…”