Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2018; 24(13): 1464-1477
Published online Apr 7, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i13.1464
Fecal microbial dysbiosis in Chinese patients with inflammatory bowel disease
Hai-Qin Ma, Ting-Ting Yu, Xiao-Jing Zhao, Yi Zhang, Hong-Jie Zhang
Hai-Qin Ma, Ting-Ting Yu, Xiao-Jing Zhao, Yi Zhang, Hong-Jie Zhang, Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Ma HQ and Zhang HJ conceived the study; Ma HQ and Yu TT performed the research; Zhao XJ and Zhang Y analyzed the data; Ma HQ wrote this manuscript; Zhang HJ supervised the report.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81470827.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Hong-Jie Zhang, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing 210029, Jiangsu Province, China. hjzhang06@163.com
Telephone: +86-25-83718836-6920 Fax: +86-25-83674636
Received: January 10, 2018
Peer-review started: January 10, 2018
First decision: February 5, 2018
Revised: March 5, 2018
Accepted: March 7, 2018
Article in press: March 7, 2018
Published online: April 7, 2018
Processing time: 84 Days and 9.3 Hours
Abstract
AIM

To analyze the alterations of fecal microbiota in Chinese patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

METHODS

Fecal samples from 15 patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) (11 active CD, 4 inactive CD), 14 patients with active ulcerative colitis (UC) and 13 healthy individuals were collected and subjected to 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) gene sequencing. The V4 hypervariable regions of 16S rDNA gene were amplified from all samples and sequenced by the Illumina MiSeq platform. Quality control and operational taxonomic units classification of reads were calculated with QIIME software. Alpha diversity and beta diversity were displayed with R software.

RESULTS

Community richness (chao) and microbial structure in both CD and UC were significantly different from those in normal controls. At the phyla level, analysis of the microbial compositions revealed a significantly greater abundance of Proteobacteria in IBD as compared to that in controls. At the genera level, 8 genera in CD and 23 genera in UC (in particular, the Escherichia genus) showed significantly greater abundance as compared to that in normal controls. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes in the active CD group was markedly lower than that in the inactive CD group. The abundance of Proteobacteria in patients with active CD was nominally higher than that in patients with inactive CD; however, the difference was not statistically significant after correction. Furthermore, the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes showed a negative correlation with the CD activity index scores.

CONCLUSION

Our study profiles specific characteristics and microbial dysbiosis in the gut of Chinese patients with IBD. Bacteroidetes may have a negative impact on inflammatory development.

Keywords: Crohn’s disease; Ulcerative colitis; Chinese; Microbial dysbiosis; 16S ribosomal DNA

Core tip: Intestinal microbiota plays an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease. However, there are few data on global alteration of microbiota in Chinese patients. In this study, fecal samples were subjected to 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing. Community richness and microbial structure in inflammatory bowel disease were significantly different from those in normal controls. The relative abundance of Bacteroidetes in the active Crohn’s disease group was significantly lower than that in the inactive Crohn’s disease group, and it showed a negative correlation with Crohn’s disease activity index, which indicates that Bacteroidetes may have a negative impact on inflammatory development.