Abstract
Background
Chronic back pain (CBP) is a major cause of disability globally and its causes are multifactorial. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are human herpes viruses usually acquired in early life. About 50% and over 90% of the population worldwide have been infected with CMV and EBV, respectively. This study investigated a potential causal relationship between CMV infection and CBP.
Method
UK Biobank participants provided information on CMV seropositivity and CBP status, which were available for both traits in 5,140 participants. We used EBV seropositivity as a negative control to identify confounding and inaccurate causal inference. A one-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) based on independent genetic variants predicting CMV and EBV positivity was conducted in Northern European participants. To validate the association further, the MR study was repeated using a CMV polygenic risk score (PRS).
Results
CMV GWAS revealed 86 independent SNPs having p-value < 2 × 10−4 for the one-sample MR. These SNPs were used to define genetically-predicted categories of CMV infection risk. CMV infection risk categories were significantly associated with CBP (OR = 1.150; 95% CI: 1.005–1.317, p-value = 0.043), findings which were confirmed using the CMV PRS (OR = 1.299; 95% CI: 1.141–1.479, p-value = 0.001). There was no causal association between EBV and CBP (p-value = 0.17).
Conclusion
Our results provide further evidence for a causal relationship between CMV infection and CBP. These results suggest a stratified approach to CBP may be useful, particularly in clinical trials and they shed light on underlying mechanisms in CBP.
Conflicts of interest
No conflicts of interest
Sources of funding
No funding obtained
Acknowledgement
UKBB data were obtained under the project #18219
Some aspects of this work have been previously presented at The Challenge of Chronic Pain: From Genomics to Therapy in UK and first 1st Danish International Conference on Personalised Medicine in Denmark.
