BACKGROUND

Diabetes that only appears or is diagnosed during pregnancy is referred to as gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The maternal physiological immune profile is essential for a positive pregnancy outcome. However, the causal relationship between GDM and immunophenotypes is not fully defined.

METHODS

Based on the high-density genetic variation data at the genome-wide level, we evaluated the logical associations between 731 specific immune mediators and GDM using bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR). The inverse variance weighted (IVW) was the main method employed for MR analysis. We performed multiple methods to verify the robustness and dependability of the MR results, and sensitivity measures were applied to rule out potential heterogeneity and horizontal pleiotropy.

RESULTS

A substantial causal association between several immune mediators and GDM was detected. After FDR testing, and were shown to increase the risk of GDM; in contrast, and were shown to attenuate the effect of GDM. Moreover, the progression of GDM has been shown to decrease the maternal levels of , , , , and .

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support a possible causal association between GDM and various immunophenotypes, thus facilitating the provision of multiple options for preventive recognition as well as for the diagnostic and therapeutic management of GDM in clinical practice.