The causal relationship between immune cells and diabetic retinopathy: a Mendelian randomization study

PurposeThis article explored the causal relationship between immune cells and diabetic retinopathy (DR) using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as an instrumental variable and Mendelian randomization (MR).MethodsStatistical data were collected from a publicly available genome-wide association study (GWAS), and SNPs that were significantly associated with immune cells were used as instrumental variables (IVs). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) and MR−Egger regression were used for MR analysis. A sensitivity analysis was used to test the heterogeneity, horizontal pleiotropy, and stability of the results.ResultsWe investigated the causal relationship between 731 immune cells and DR risk. All the GWAS data were obtained from European populations and from men and women. The IVW analysis revealed that HLA DR on CD14+ CD16- monocytes, HLA DR on CD14+ monocytes, HLA DR on CD33-HLA DR+, HLA DR on CD33+ HLA DR+ CD14- on CD33+ HLA DR+ CD14dim, and HLA DR on myeloid dendritic cells may increase the risk of DR (P