The Causal Effect Between Human Microbiota and Scabies: A Study from the Genetic Perspective

Qi Zheng; Yuetong Li; Wenfeng Zhu; Xiang Xu; Guoping Sheng; Lanjuan Li

doi:10.2147/CCID.S491660

The Causal Effect Between Human Microbiota and Scabies: A Study from the Genetic Perspective

Clin Cosmet Investig Dermatol. 2024 Dec 6:17:2803-2812. doi: 10.2147/CCID.S491660. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Qi Zheng^#¹, Yuetong Li^#¹, Wenfeng Zhu¹, Xiang Xu², Guoping Sheng³, Lanjuan Li¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.
² Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.
³ Key Laboratory of Artificial Organs and Computational Medicine in Zhejiang Province, Shulan (Hangzhou) Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang Shuren University, Shulan International Medical College, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have indicated that human flora may affect the development of scabies, however, no studies have proven a causal relationship between human flora and scabies, which would be detrimental to future in-depth studies on human flora and scabies.

Methods: Mendelian randomization (MR) was used to analyze the causal effect between human microbiota and scabies, with data on intestinal flora and skin flora from two large published studies and data on scabies from the FinnGen database. Five MR analysis methods were used to increase the reliability of the results, and sensitivity analyses were conducted to increase the robustness of the results.

Results: Our results suggest that 13 intestinal flora as well as 7 skin flora can have a causal effect on scabies.

Conclusion: Overall, our results demonstrate a causal relationship between intestinal and skin flora and scabies and are consistent with previous observational findings. This will contribute to the future development of probiotic agents for the prevention or treatment of scabies.

Keywords: FinnGen; Mendelian randomization; gut microbiota; scabies; skin microbiota.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022ZFJH003), Shandong Provincial Laboratory Project (SYS202202) and the Research Project of Jinan Microecological Biomedicine Shandong Laboratory (JNL-2022001A).