Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Apr 27, 2025; 17(4): 102027
Published online Apr 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i4.102027
Quantification of Streptococcus salivarius using the digital polymerase chain reaction as a liver fibrosis marker
Shuichiro Iwasaki, Akira Také, Haruki Uojima, Kazue Horio, Yoshihiko Sakaguchi, Kazuyoshi Gotoh, Takashi Satoh, Hisashi Hidaka, Yasuhito Tanaka, Shunji Hayashi, Chika Kusano
Shuichiro Iwasaki, Haruki Uojima, Kazue Horio, Hisashi Hidaka, Chika Kusano, Department of Gastroenterology, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara 252-0375, Kanagawa, Japan
Akira Také, Shunji Hayashi, Department of Microbiology, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara 252-0373, Kanagawa, Japan
Haruki Uojima, Department of Genome Medical Sciences Project, Research Institute, National Center for Global Health and Medicine, Ichikawa 272-8516, Chiba, Japan
Yoshihiko Sakaguchi, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Tokushima 770-8055, Japan
Kazuyoshi Gotoh, Department of Bacteriology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Takashi Satoh, Division of Hematology, Kitasato University School of Allied Health Sciences, Sagamihara 252-0373, Kanagawa, Japan
Yasuhito Tanaka, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Kumamoto University Hospital, Kumamoto 860-8556, Japan
Co-first authors: Shuichiro Iwasaki and Akira Také.
Co-corresponding authors: Haruki Uojima and Yoshihiko Sakaguchi.
Author contributions: Iwasaki S and Uojima H collected and analysed the data; Uojima H drafted the manuscript; Hidaka H, Yasuhito T and Kusano C designed and supervised the study; Také A, Horio H, Sakaguchi Y, Gotoh K, Satoh T, Tanaka Y and Hayashi S offered technical or material support; all the authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. The reasons for designating Iwasaki S and Také A as co-first authors are twofold. First, this study focuses on the analysis of the gut microbiota in patients with chronic liver disease, and both hepatology and microbiology experts are needed and considered equally important. The overall research team encompassed authors with a variety of expertise and skills from different fields, and the designation of co-first authors best reflect this diversity. Second, Iwasaki S and Také A contributed efforts of equal substance throughout the research process. The choice of these researchers as co-first authors acknowledge and respect this equal contribution, while recognizing the spirit of teamwork and collaboration of this study. The reasons for designating Uojima H and Sakaguchi Y as corresponding authors are that as mentioned before, this research is a close relationship between liver disease and microbiology, and requires the perspectives, knowledge, and considerations of experts in each field. Uojima H is a leading expert in the field of liver disease, and Sakaguchi Y is a leading expert in the field of microbiology. The cooperation of these two as corresponding authors improved the quality of this research and made it possible to create a more useful paper.
Supported by JSPS KAKENHI, No. 23K15083.
Institutional review board statement: The protocol for this research project was approved by the institution’s suitably constituted Ethics Committee. It conforms to the provisions of the Declaration of Helsinki. Committee of Kitasato University Hospital, Approval No. C21-212.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from the participants.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
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: Haruki Uojima, MD, PhD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Minami-ku Kitasato1-15-1, Sagamihara 252-0375, Kanagawa, Japan. kiruha@kitasato-u.ac.jp
Received: October 6, 2024
Revised: February 21, 2025
Accepted: April 9, 2025
Published online: April 27, 2025
Processing time: 200 Days and 21.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This is a retrospective single-centre observational study and the first to quantify Streptococcus salivarius (S. salivarius) load in stool samples as a liver fibrosis marker for patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) Using digital PCR (dPCR). DPCR is a high precision technique for measuring the absolute quantity of the bacterial species. The quantification of S. salivarius using dPCR is proposed as a potentially useful biomarker for liver fibrosis in patients with CLD.