Genetic Approaches Highlight the Bi-directional Causal Association between Hypothyroidism and Primary Biliary Cirrhosis

<b>Context:</b> Hypothyroidism and Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) are often co-existed in observational epidemiological studies. However, the causal relationship between them remains unclear. <b>Methods:</b> Genetic correlation, Mendelian randomization (MR) and colocalization analysis were combined to assess the potential causal association between hypothyroidism and PBC by using summary statistics from large-scale genome-wide association studies. Various sensitivity analyses had been conducted to assess the robustness and the consistency of the findings.

**背景：** 在观察性流行病学研究中，甲状腺功能减退症（Hypothyroidism）与原发性胆汁性肝硬化（Primary biliary cirrhosis, PBC）常合并存在，但二者间的因果关联仍不明确。
**方法：** 本研究联合运用遗传相关分析、孟德尔随机化（Mendelian randomization, MR）与共定位分析，借助大规模全基因组关联研究的汇总统计量，评估甲状腺功能减退症与原发性胆汁性肝硬化（PBC）之间的潜在因果关联；同时开展多项敏感性分析，以验证研究结果的稳健性与一致性。