The MR-Base platform supports systematic causal inference across the human phenome

MR-Base is a platform for inferring causal relationships between human phenotypes using 2-sample Mendelian randomization (2SMR), a strategy that draws on genome-wide association study (GWAS) results and avoids the need for individual-level data. It integrates a curated database of complete GWAS results with an application programming interface, a web app, and R packages that automate the 2SMR workflow, including sensitivity analyses that assess horizontal pleiotropy and other violations of the method's assumptions.

The database comprises 11 billion single nucleotide polymorphism-trait associations drawn from 1673 GWAS and is updated on a regular basis. By coupling curated data with software, MR-Base supports more rigorous, hypothesis-driven analyses and makes it feasible to efficiently evaluate millions of potential causal relationships in phenome-wide association studies.