Mendelian Randomization

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Audit 0.4.1 · source sha c8c1fc3a2b13 · 19 Oct 2026Report an issue or request a re-scan

• PublisherGPTomics GitHub organizationOwner of the repository this skill is read from
• Source folderGPTomics/bioSkills/causal-genomics/mendelian-randomizationThe exact folder we audited
• LicenceMITAs the repository states it
• Commit pinned for this verdictc8c1fc3a2b13A new audit runs when the source changes
• Repository statusArchivedLast push 65 days ago
• Sandboxed runNot runSkills are read, not executed; layer L4 is skipped

Its description: Estimate causal effects of an exposure on an outcome from GWAS summary statistics using genetic instruments. Implements IVW (fixed/random), MR-Egger, weighted median/mode, MR-RAPS, CAUSE, GSMR-HEIDI, MR-PRESSO, MVMR,…

---
name: bio-causal-genomics-mendelian-randomization
description: Estimate causal effects of an exposure on an outcome from GWAS summary statistics using genetic instruments. Implements IVW (fixed/random), MR-Egger, weighted median/mode, MR-RAPS, CAUSE, GSMR-HEIDI, MR-PRESSO, MVMR, MR-Clust, LCV, and LHC-MR via TwoSampleMR, MendelianRandomization, MR-PRESSO, cause, and lhcMR. Use when testing causal direction between traits, evaluating drug-target effects via cis-pQTL/cis-eQTL, performing multivariable mediation MR, distinguishing causation from correlated horizontal pleiotropy, or producing STROBE-MR-compliant sensitivity batteries.
tool_type: mixed
primary_tool: TwoSampleMR
---

## Version Compatibility

Reference examples tested with: TwoSampleMR 0.6.0+, MendelianRandomization 0.10+, MR-PRESSO 1.0+, cause 1.2+, MVMR 0.4+, ieugwasr 1.0+, MRlap 0.0.3.2+, coloc 5.2+, mrclust 0.1+, lhcMR 0.0.1+, R 4.4+. Both TwoSampleMR 0.6.0 and ieugwasr 1.0 are the JWT-transition versions; older versions still expect deprecated OAuth.

Before using code patterns, verify installed versions match. If versions differ:
- R: `packageVersion('<pkg>')` then `?function_name` to verify parameters
- CLI (plink, GCTA-GSMR): `<tool> --version` then `<tool> --help`

If code throws an error referencing a function that has moved (e.g. `ieugwasr::ld_clump` vs `TwoSampleMR::clump_data`) or an OAuth token failure, introspect the installed API and adapt the example rather than retrying.

# Mendelian Randomization

**"Test whether trait X causally affects trait Y from GWAS summary statistics"** -> Use genetic variants as instrumental variables (IVs) that satisfy three assumptions (relevance, independence, exclusion restriction) to estimate `beta_causal = beta_outcome / beta_exposure` under the IV framework (Davey Smith & Ebrahim 2003 IJE 32:1; Burgess & Thompson 2021 Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2nd ed.). Tool choice is a decision about the **regime** (one-sample vs two-sample, sparse vs polygenic, drug-target vs polygenic exposure) and the **pleiotropy model** (balanced, directional InSIDE, correlated horizontal). Wrong tool inflates Type-I error or attenuates true effects in a direction predictable from the bias structure.

- R: `TwoSampleMR::mr()` orchestrates IVW + Egger + weighted median + weighted mode in one call
- R: `MendelianRandomization::mr_ivw / mr_egger / mr_median / mr_mbe / mr_conmix` per-method API (S4 objects; MR-RAPS is NOT in this package -- use `TwoSampleMR::mr_raps()` which wraps the GitHub `mr.raps`)
- R: `MRPRESSO::mr_presso()` global / outlier / distortion tests
- R: `cause::cause()` correlated horizontal pleiotropy mixture
- R: `MVMR::strength_mvmr() + MVMR::ivw_mvmr()` multivariable conditional-F + IVW

## Statistical Model Taxonomy

| Method | Pleiotropy assumption | Min instruments | Strength | Fails when |
|--------|------------------------|-----------------|----------|------------|
| IVW (fixed) | All IVs valid | 2 | Most efficient under no pleiotropy | Any directional or balanced pleiotropy inflates Type-I |
| IVW (random effects) | Balanced + InSIDE | 3 | Standard primary; absorbs heterogeneity into wider SE | Directional pleiotropy biases the point estimate |
| MR-Egger | Directional pleiotropy + InSIDE | 10+ for power | Detects + corrects directional pleiotropy via intercept (Bowden 2015 IJE 44:512) | NOME violated (`I^2_GX < 0.9`); SIMEX correction required; underpowered <10 SNPs |
| Weighted median | Up to 50% invalid IVs | 3 | Robust to a minority of bad instruments (Bowden 2016 Genet Epidemiol 40:304) | >50% invalid IVs |
| Weighted mode | Zero modal pleiotropy (ZEMPA) | 3 | Robust if the modal estimate is unbiased (Hartwig 2017 IJE 46:1985) | Bimodal pleiotropy; small numbers |
| MR-RAPS | Balanced pleiotropy + weak instruments | 10+ | Profile-score robust to weak-IV + balanced horizontal pleiotropy (Zhao 2020 Ann Stat 48:1742) | Strong directional pleiotropy; CRAN-archived 2025-03-01 |
| CAUSE | Correlated horizontal pleiotropy (CHP) | 100+ sig SNPs | Explicit shared-factor mixture; protects against CHP-driven false positives (Morrison 2020 Nat Genet 52:740) | Sparse polygenic exposures; <100 sig SNPs |
| GSMR + HEIDI-outlier | Outlier removal under InSIDE | 10+ | Alternative outlier detection; integrates with LD reference (Zhu 2018 Nat Commun 9:224) | Requires individual-level LD; HEIDI conservative |
| MR-PRESSO | Outlier-driven horizontal pleiotropy | 4+ | Global / outlier / distortion three-step (Verbanck 2018 Nat Genet 50:693) | Blind to CHP; computationally heavy at large NbDistribution |
| MVMR (IVW) | Conditional independence after measured pleiotropy | 1+ per exposure | Accounts for measured horizontal pleiotropy via multivariable regression (Sanderson 2019 IJE 48:713) | Conditional F < 10 on any exposure |
| MR-Clust | Heterogeneous causal effects (multiple mechanisms) | 30+ | Clusters SNPs by their causal-effect estimate (Foley 2021 Bioinformatics 37:531) | Single causal mechanism; small instrument sets |
| Contamination mixture | Mixture of valid + invalid IVs | 10+ | Profile-likelihood mixture (Burgess 2020 Nat Commun 11:376) | Sparse signal |
| LCV | Genome-wide; distinguishes causation vs genetic correlation | All SNPs | Tests `gcp` parameter using LDSC-style block jackknife (O'Connor & Price 2018 Nat Genet 50:1728) | Two-trait covariance dominated by a third confounder |
| LHC-MR | Bidirectional + heritable confounder | All SNPs | Joint likelihood over genome-wide markers; estimates both directions + confounder (Darrous 2021 Nat Commun 12:7274) | Computationally heavy; rare-variant trait |
| MRlap | Sample overlap + winner's curse + weak-IV jointly | Genome-wide sumstats | LDSC-scaffolded joint correction (Mounier & Kutalik 2023 Genet Epidemiol 47:314) | LDSC intercept poorly estimated (h^2 < 0.05); non-EUR without matched LD scores |
| Doubly-Ranked MR (DRMR) | Non-linear, non-parametric | 5+ strata | Non-parametric stratification (Tian 2023 PLoS Genet 19:e1010823); replace

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1. 2026-10-19
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   first audit · source c8c1fc3a2b13

Questions about Mendelian Randomization

• github.com/GPTomics/bioSkills/tree/main/causal-genomics/mendelia — the audited source at commit c8c1fc3a2b13 and every finding aboveObserved · 19 Oct 2026

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