Inhibition of interleukin 6 signalling and renal function: a Mendelian
randomization study
Abstract
Inhibition of interleukin 6 (IL-6) signalling has been proposed as a
potential cardioprotective strategy for patients with chronic kidney
disease (CKD) but the direct renal effects of IL-6 inhibition are not
established. A Mendelian randomization (MR) study was performed to
investigate the association of genetically proxied inhibition of IL-6
signalling with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), CKD and
blood urea nitrogen (BUN). Inverse variance weighted MR was used as the
main analysis, with sensitivity analyses performed using simple median,
weighted median and MR-Egger methods. There was no evidence for an
association of genetically proxied inhibition of IL-6 signalling (scaled
per unit decrease in natural log transformed C-reactive protein) with
log eGFR (0.002, 95% confidence interval -0.004 – 0.008), BUN (0.088,
95% confidence interval -0.003 – 0.019) and CKD (odds ratio 1.018,
95% confidence interval 0.899 – 1.153). These findings suggest that
inhibition of IL-6 signalling is unlikely to have a direct effect on
renal function.