Multi-omics insight into the metabolic and cellular characteristics in the pathogenesis of hypothyroidism

Abstract

While circulating metabolites and immune system have been increasingly linked to hypothyroidism risk, the causality underlying these associations remains largely uninterrogated. We used Mendelian randomization to identified putative causal traits for hypothyroidism via integrating omics data. Briefly, we utilized 1180 plasma metabolites and 731 immune cells traits as exposures to identify putatively causal traits for hypothyroidism in the discovery (40,926 cases) and replication cohorts (14,871 cases). By combining MR results from two large-scale cohorts, we ultimately identified 21 putatively causal traits, including five plasma metabolites and 16 immune cell traits. CD3 on CD28 + CD4 + T cell and 1-(1-enyl-palmitoyl)-2-oleoyl-GPE (p-16:0/18:1) demonstrated the most pronounced positive and negative associations with hypothyroidism risk, respectively. The odds ratio and 95% confidence interval were 1.09 (1.07, 1.12) and 0.81 (0.75, 0.87), respectively. No evidence of horizontal pleiotropy, heterogeneity among instrumental variables or reverse causation were found for these 21 significant associations. Our study elucidates key metabolites and immune cell traits associated with hypothyroidism. These findings provide new insights into the etiology and potential therapeutic targets for hypothyroidism.