@article{42f64a2314564745bfeca7fe244b514b,
title = "Mendelian randomization implies no direct causal association between leukocyte telomere length and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis",
abstract = "We employed Mendelian randomization (MR) to evaluate the causal relationship between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with summary statistics from genome-wide association studies (n = ~ 38,000 for LTL and ~ 81,000 for ALS in the European population; n = ~ 23,000 for LTL and ~ 4,100 for ALS in the Asian population). We further evaluated mediation roles of lipids in the pathway from LTL to ALS. The odds ratio per standard deviation decrease of LTL on ALS was 1.10 (95% CI 0.93–1.31, p = 0.274) in the European population and 0.75 (95% CI 0.53–1.07, p = 0.116) in the Asian population. This null association was also detected between LTL and frontotemporal dementia in the European population. However, we found that an indirect effect of LTL on ALS might be mediated by low density lipoprotein (LDL) or total cholesterol (TC) in the European population. These results were robust against extensive sensitivity analyses. Overall, our MR study did not support the direct causal association between LTL and the ALS risk in neither population, but provided suggestive evidence for the mediation role of LDL or TC on the influence of LTL and ALS in the European population.",
author = "{International FTD-Genomics Consortium (IFGC)} and Yixin Gao and Ting Wang and Xinghao Yu and Raffaele Ferrari and Hernandez, {Dena G.} and Nalls, {Michael A.} and Rohrer, {Jonathan D.} and Adaikalavan Ramasamy and Kwok, {John B.J.} and Carol Dobson-Stone and Brooks, {William S.} and Schofield, {Peter R.} and Halliday, {Glenda M.} and Hodges, {John R.} and Olivier Piguet and Lauren Bartley and Elizabeth Thompson and Eric Haan and Isabel Hern{\'a}ndez and Agust{\'i}n Ruiz and Merc{\`e} Boada and Barbara Borroni and Alessandro Padovani and Carlos Cruchaga and Cairns, {Nigel J.} and Luisa Benussi and Giuliano Binetti and Roberta Ghidoni and Gianluigi Forloni and Diego Albani and Daniela Galimberti and Chiara Fenoglio and Maria Serpente and Elio Scarpini and Jordi Clarim{\'o}n and Alberto Lle{\'o} and Rafael Blesa and Wald{\"o}, {Maria Landqvist} and Karin Nilsson and Christer Nilsson and Mackenzie, {Ian R.A.} and Hsiung, {Ging Yuek R.} and Mann, {David M.A.} and Rosa Rademakers and Dickson, {Dennis W.} and Graff-Radford, {Neill R.} and Petersen, {Ronald C.} and David Knopman and Josephs, {Keith A.} and Boeve, {Bradley F.}",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, The Author(s).",
year = "2020",
month = dec,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/s41598-020-68848-9",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "10",
journal = "Scientific reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}