Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2023; 29(13): 1994-2000
Published online Apr 7, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i13.1994
Gut microbiota predicts the diagnosis of celiac disease in Saudi children
Mohammad El Mouzan, Asaad Assiri, Ahmed Al Sarkhy
Mohammad El Mouzan, Asaad Assiri, Ahmed Al Sarkhy, Department of Pediatrics (Gastroenterology Unit), King Saud University, Riyadh 11461, Saudi Arabia
Author contributions: El Mouzan M designed the study, interpreted the data, drafted, and revised the manuscript; Assiri A and Al Sarkhy A participated equally in the data management and revision; and all authors approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University, No. RGP-1441-007.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the College of Medicine IRB (No. 14/4464/IRB).
Informed consent statement: All parents and children received informed consent/assent before participation in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data is available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mohammad El Mouzan, MD, Full Professor, Department of Pediatrics (Gastroenterology Unit), King Saud University, 1, King Abdullah Street, Riyadh 11461, Saudi Arabia. melmouzan@ksu.edu.sa
Received: November 2, 2022
Peer-review started: November 2, 2022
First decision: December 11, 2022
Revised: December 29, 2022
Accepted: March 20, 2023
Article in press: March 20, 2023
Published online: April 7, 2023
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Dysbiosis associated with celiac disease (CeD) is well known and beneficial and harmful associations have been reported.

Research motivation

The role of the microbiota in predicting CeD has rarely been described.

Research objectives

To search for a microbial signature that may help in the diagnosis and prevention of CeD.

Research methods

Metagenomic analysis of microbial DNA in mucosa and stool of children with newly diagnosed CeD calculation of the area under the curve to evaluate the predictive power of the whole microbiota and use of rendom forest analysis to identify important microbes in distinguishing CeD groups from controls.

Research results

Very high discriminatory power of combined bacteria and viruses (81.8%) in fecal samples and bacteria only in mucosal samples (81.2%). Bacteroides intestinalis and Burkholderiales bacterium 1-1-47 in fecal samples were demmed important.

Research conclusions

The excellent predictive power of microbiota may help in the diagnosis of difficult cases of CeD. The identification of important specific bacterial species that are reduced in CeD may have a potential protective role.

Research perspectives

Future research in this area with larger sample sizes is needed to clarify the role of microbiota in the diagnosis and prevention of CeD.