Selected genetic instrumental variables
We screened the IVs according to the criteria described above and finally selected 63, 52 and 39 independent SNPs as IVs of overall IBD, CD and UC. F statistics revealed there was no weak instrumental bias between the screened IVs and exposure (all F > 10). Detailed information of the selected SNPs and F analyses were presented in Tables S1-S3. The IVs of exposure used in fourteen MR analyses (IBD and urological cancers) all shared the same filtered SNPs.
The causal effect of IBD on kidney cancer
IVW results showed that overall IBD, CD and UC were not causally related to kidney cancer in either the training set (Overall IBD: OR=1.000002, 95%CI=0.9998-1.0002, P=0.986; CD: OR=1.00007, 95%CI=0.9999-1.0002, P=0.468; UC: OR=1.0001, 95%CI=0.9999-1.0004, P=0.343) or validation set (Overall IBD: OR=0.987, 95%CI=0.918-1.061, P=0.714; CD: OR=0.982, 95%CI=0.927-1.041, P=0.546; UC: OR=1.018, 95%CI=0.932-1.111, P=0.699). The overall effect of the training and validation sets also indicated no significant association between IBD and kidney cancer, and the results were shown in the forest plot drawn based on the IVW method (Figure 2). We also drew the forest plot based on the MR-Egger method and the results were consistent (Figure S1). Scatter plots and forest plots derived from the IVW method are shown in Figure S2 and S3. No significant association was observed in the other four models either. Detailed information of MR analyses was presented in Tables S4-S6. We therefore believed that IBD and its main subtypes were not the causal risk factors for kidney cancer in European population.
The causal effect of IBD on bladder cancer
Overall IBD, CD and UC were similarly not significantly associated with bladder cancer by the IVW method in training set (Overall IBD: OR=0.9999, 95%CI=0.9995-1.0002, P=0.482; CD: OR=0.99995, 95%CI=0.9997-1.0002, P=0.704; UC: OR=0.9999, 95%CI=0.9995-1.0003, P=0.556). Data from the validation set showed the same results (Overall IBD: OR=1.008, 95%CI=0.943-1.077, P=0.817); CD: OR=0.997, 95%CI=0.941-1.055, P=0.906; UC: OR=1.002, 95%CI=0.935-1.074, P=0.958). Forest plots depicting the overall effect also indicated that IBD and its major subtypes were not associated with bladder cancer based on the IVW method (Figure 2) and MR-Egger method (Figure S1). Figure S2 and S3 showed the scatter plots and forest plots based on the IVW method. No correlation was observed by other methods (Tables S4-S6). Hence, there was also no causal effect of IBD, CD and UC on bladder cancer in European population.
The causal effect of IBD on prostate cancer
Although there were observational studies that observed a correlation between IBD and prostate cancer[14-16], it appeared that neither overall IBD, nor CD and UC had causal effects on prostate cancer under the IVW method in training set (Overall IBD: OR=0.9992, 95%CI=0.998-1.0004, P=0.192; CD: OR=0.9992, 95%CI=0.998-1.0002, P=0.125; UC: OR=0.9999, 95%CI=0.9984-1.001, P=0.882). The data from validation sets including FinnGen (Overall IBD: OR=1.014, 95%CI=0.998-1.051, P=0.458; CD: OR=1.005, 95%CI=0.976-1.034, P=0.741; UC: OR=1.018, 95%CI=0.971-1.067, P=0.459) and PRACTICAL Consortium (Overall IBD: OR=1.005, 95%CI=0.983-1.027, P=0.667; CD: OR=1.002, 95%CI=0.986-1.019, P=0.795; UC: OR=0.987, 95%CI=0.958-1.016, P=0.361) also indicated no significant association. Even when the overall effects of the training and validation sets were analyzed, the results did not show a noticeable tendency to be relevant depending on the IVW method (Figure 2), which were also uniform under the MR-Egger method. We also sketched the results using the IVW method in scatter plots and forest plots (Figure S2 and S3). While we observed a slight causal effect of UC on prostate cancer from the PRACTICAL database only under the Weighted mode method (validation set, OR=0.956, 95%CI=0.917-0.998, P=0.043), the genetic association was not significant in all other groups (Tables S4-S6). Thus, we concluded that IBD and its main subtypes could not serve as genetically predicted causal risk factors of prostate cancer in European population.
Sensitivity analysis
Pleiotropy and heterogeneity analyses were performed to validate the reliability of the MR analyses above (Table 2). No incidence of potential pleiotropy was identified in MR-Egger regression analyses and MR-PRESSO tests. Outlier SNPs in our study were excluded by the MR-PRESSO method. Additionally, we applied Cochran's Q p-value (Table 2) and funnel plots (Figure S4) in IVW and MR-Egger methods and the presence of heterogeneity was found in some analyses, such heterogeneity being acceptable in MR study. It was demonstrated by the results of leave-one-sensitivity analyses that the estimates of the causal effects of genetic prediction of IBD on urological cancers were reliable (Figure S5).