Associations between gut microbiota and genetic risk for rheumatoid arthritis in the absence of disease: a cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease that is associated with reduced life expectancy. The disease is heritable and an extensive repertoire of genetic variants have been identified. The gut microbiota might represent an environmental risk factor for rheumatoid arthritis. We aimed to assess whether known rheumatoid arthritis risk alleles were associated with the gut microbiota in a large population who do not have rheumatoid arthritis.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study done in the UK and Switzerland, we used genotyping and microbiota data from previous studies of the TwinsUK cohort, excluding participants who had ever had a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, as well as their unaffected co-twins. We used blood samples for genotyping a

SUBMITTER: Wells PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7729822 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature