The causal relationships between obstructive sleep apnea and elevated CRP and TNF-α protein levels
Minhan Yi, Wangcheng Zhao, Yun Tan, Quanming Fei, Kun Liu, Ziliang Chen, Yuan Zhang
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and inflammation are closely related. This study aimed to evaluate the associations and causal effect between C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) levels andOSA. METHODS: Pooled analysis was conducted to compare the expression differences of CRP and TNF-α between OSA patients with different severity and controls, and between continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and non-CPAP interventions for OSA patients. Using published GWAS summary statistics, we conducted a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) to estimate the causal relationships between CRP and TNF-α levels and OSA risk. Effect estimates were evaluated using inverse-variance weighted (IVW) as primary method, and several other MR methods as sensitivity analysis. RESULTS: = .053). However, there were no causal associations between TNF-α and OSA from both directions. CONCLUSIONS: Increased CRP and TNF-α were associated with OSA severity and sensible to CPAP treatment. Also, OSA had a suggestive causal effect on elevated CRP.