Combining Mendelian randomization and multiomics data to determine the causal relationship between systemic inflammation and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
Ke Yang, Guixin Zhu, Yanyan Li, Jie Huang, Yanfei Zhang, Fei Sun, Zhuomin Sha, Yun Zhang, Xuepeng Chen · 2026
Read Combining Mendelian randomization and multiomics data to determine the causal relationship between systemic inflammation and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma by Ke Yang, Guixin Zhu, Yanyan Li, Jie Huang, Yanfei Zhang, Fei Sun, Zhuomin Sha, Yun Zhang, Xuepeng Chen (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13563795.txt.
Description
Ke Yang and eight colleagues use genetics to ask whether inflammation causes head and neck cancer, or the cancer stirs the inflammation, or both. Ordinary studies cannot untangle that loop. Their 2026 approach, Mendelian randomisation, treats inherited gene variants as natural experiments, since genes are fixed before disease begins. Two-sample and two-step mediation designs linked the cancer with immune cell types and inflammatory proteins, and gene and protein datasets checked whether the flagged players shift in patients.
Three factors looked protective: the chemokine CXCL11, the immune switch CD40, and part of the interleukin-10 receptor. One protein, cystatin D, raised susceptibility. The cancer itself causally reshaped immune populations, from T cells to natural killers. Single-cell data showed CXCL signalling between monocytes and T cells. The authors frame inflammation and this cancer as mutual drivers, with CXCL11 a hub worth targeting for detection and immune therapy.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ke Yang, Guixin Zhu, Yanyan Li, Jie Huang, Yanfei Zhang, Fei Sun, Zhuomin Sha, Yun Zhang, Xuepeng Chen |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 60989 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |