Circulating Metabolites and Dental Traits: A Mendelian Randomization Study

It is of great importance to uncover causal biomarkers to gain insight into the pathogenesis of oral diseases and identify novel treatment targets for prevention and treatment thereof. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the causal effects of hundreds of metabolites on 10 dental traits using a 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. Genetic variants from genome-wide association studies of 309 known metabolites were used as instrumental variables. We selected 10 dental traits, including clinical measures of dental diseases, from the Gene–Lifestyle Interactions in Dental Endpoints Consortium and self-reported oral health data from the UK Biobank. The causal relationships between metabolites and dental traits were inferred using the inverse variance–weighted approach and further controlled for horizontal pleiotropy using 5 additional MR methods. After correcting for multiple tests, 5 metabolites were identified as causal biomarkers. Genetically predicted increased levels of mannose were associated with lower risk of bleeding gums (odds ratio [OR] = 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61–0.85; P = 9.9 × 10 −5 ). MR also indicated 4 metabolites on the causal pathway to dentures, with fructose (OR = 0.50; 95% CI, 0.36–0.70; P = 5.2 × 10 −5 ) and 1-palmitoleoyl-glycerophosphocholine (OR = 0.67; 95% CI, 0.56–0.81; P = 4.8 × 10 −5 ) as potential protective factors and glycine (OR = 1.22; 95% CI, 1.11–1.35; P = 5.6×10 −5 ) and 1,5-anhydroglucitol (OR = 1.32; 95% CI, 1.14–1.52; P = 1.5 × 10 −4 ) as risk factors. The causal associations were robust in various sensitivity analyses. We further observed some shared metabolites among different dental traits, implying similar biological mechanisms underlying the pathogenic processes. Finally, the pathway analysis revealed several significant metabolic pathways that may be involved in the development of dental disorders. Our study provides novel insights into the combination of metabolomics and genomics to reveal the pathogenesis of and therapeutic strategies for dental disorders. It highlighted 5 metabolites and several pathways as causal candidates, warranting further investigation.