Connection between circulating inflammatory cytokines and non-small cell lung cancer: integrated Mendelian randomization and gene function analysis.

BACKGROUND

A lot of cancers including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) arise in association with chronic inflammation. In this study, Mendelian randomization (MR) and gene function analyses were integrated to address the connection between circulating inflammatory cytokines and NSCLC, and the underlying biological processes and functional significance of the correlated inflammatory cytokines.

METHODS

We employed the summary statistics of 91 inflammatory cytokines and NSCLC from the genome-wide association studies. The bidirectional MR analysis was used to identify cytokines causally associated with NSCLC. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Gene Ontology (GO) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) were used to explore the biological pathways and functional significance of the cytokines involved in the causal relationship. By using 1400 blood metabolites data and the two-step MR with an inverse variance weighted (IVW) approach, we assessed the extent to which the effect of cytokines on the risk of NSCLC was mediated by metabolites.

RESULTS

C-C motif chemokine ligand 11 (CCL11) (P = 0.008) and CCL2 (P = 0.026) were positively correlated with NSCLC, whereas TNF-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) (P = 0.030) and signaling lymphocytic activation molecule family member 1 (SLAMF1) (P = 0.049) were negatively associated with NSCLC. Conversely, NSCLC led to an increase of CCL13 (P = 0.025) while stem cell factor (SCF) (P = 0.009), tumor necrosis factor beta (TNF-β) (P = 0.033), and interleukin-10 (IL-10) (P = 0.042) were downregulated in NSCLC. The KEGG analysis revealed that these eight cytokines were involved in 14 distinct pathways (all adjusted P < 0.05). The GO analysis showed enrichment of specific terms associated with these cytokines (all adjusted P < 0.05). The GSEA results indicated these eight cytokines were collectively enriched in 15 biological pathways. The top 5 pathways of the ranked list are Jak-STAT, PI3K-AKT, FAK-CDC42, RTK-PI3K and PLCG-Calcineurin signaling pathways (all P < 0.05 and false discovery rate < 0.25).The two-step MR analysis showed that 1-palmitoyl-2-linoleoyl-gpc (16:0/18:2) (PC(16:0/18:2(9Z,12Z))) (P = 3.87 × 10) mediates the connection between CCL2 and NSCLC, with mediated proportion of 19.4% (P = 0.039).

CONCLUSION

The circulating inflammatory cytokines CCL11, CCL2, CCL13 and IL-10 are predominantly correlated with NSCLC, and the Jak-STAT, PI3K-AKT, FAK-CDC42, RTK-PI3K and PLCG-Calcineurin signaling pathways are closely enriched in the connection. In addition, alteration in lipid metabolism, especially phosphatidylcholine (PC) metabolism is independently linked with the risk of NSCLC induced by inflammatory cytokines.