Trans-ethnic Mendelian-randomization study reveals causal relationships between cardiometabolic factors and chronic kidney disease
Overview
Most Mendelian randomization (MR) studies focus on European populations because of the wealth of genome-wide association study (GWAS) datasets available from European ancestry population samples, in contrast to other populations. However, new GWAS summary datasets from studies such as Biobank Japan, China Kadoorie Biobank and the Japan Kidney Biobank enable us to run ancestry-specific MR analyses to compare causal effects of risk factors across populations. This approach is important in the use of MR to inform public health priorities and interventions in other populations and sub-populations that have historically been under-represented in research.