Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University Researchers Describe Recent Advances in Personalized Medicine (Causal associations between gut microbiota, circulating inflammatory proteins, and epilepsy: a multivariable Mendelian...).

Researchers from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University in China have conducted a study on the causal associations between gut microbiota (GM), circulating inflammatory proteins, and epilepsy. The study aimed to identify specific GM associated with epilepsy and its subtypes and explore their underlying inflammatory mechanisms. Using large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data, the researchers found positive and negative causal associations between GM, inflammatory proteins, and epilepsy. They also discovered that C-X-C motif chemokine 11 (CXCL11) levels mediated the causal association between a specific GM group and epilepsy. This study suggests that specific GM and inflammatory proteins may play a role in the development of epilepsy and that circulating inflammatory proteins may mediate epileptogenesis through the microbiota-gut-brain axis. [Extracted from the article]