State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Laboratory of Evolutionary & Functional Genomics, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, Yunnan, China.
BMC Genomics. 2013 Oct 1;14:669. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-14-669.
Elucidating gut microbiota among gallstone patients as well as the complex bacterial colonization of cholesterol gallstones may help in both the prediction and subsequent lowered risk of cholelithiasis. To this end, we studied the composition of bacterial communities of gut, bile, and gallstones from 29 gallstone patients as well as the gut of 38 normal individuals, examining and analyzing some 299, 217 bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences from 120 samples.
First, as compared with normal individuals, in gallstone patients there were significant (P < 0.001) increases of gut bacterial phylum Proteobacteria and decreases of three gut bacterial genera, Faecalibacterium, Lachnospira, and Roseburia. Second, about 70% of gut bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from gallstone patients were detectable in the biliary tract and bacteria diversity of biliary tract was significantly (P < 0.001) higher than that of gut. Third, analysis of the biliary tract core microbiome (represented by 106 bacteria OTUs) among gallstone patients showed that 33.96% (36/106) of constituents can be matched to known bacterial species (15 of which have publicly available genomes). A genome-wide search of MDR, BSH, bG, and phL genes purpotedly associated with the formation of cholesterol gallstones showed that all 15 species with known genomes (e.g., Propionibacterium acnes, Bacteroides vulgates, and Pseudomonas putida) contained at least contained one of the four genes. This finding could potentially provide underlying information needed to explain the association between biliary tract microbiota and the formation of cholesterol gallstones.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to discover gut microbiota dysbiosis among gallstone patients, the presence of which may be a key contributor to the complex bacteria community assembly linked with the presence of cholesterol gallstones. Likewise, this study also provides the first large-scale glimpse of biliary tract microbiota potentially associated with cholesterol gallstones. Such a characterization of the biliary tract core microbiome has potentially important biological and medical implications regarding the role of bacteria in the formation cholesterol gallstones.
阐明胆结石患者的肠道微生物群以及胆固醇胆结石复杂的细菌定植情况，有助于预测和降低胆石病的风险。为此，我们研究了 29 名胆结石患者的肠道、胆汁和胆结石的细菌群落组成，以及 38 名正常个体的肠道，共检查和分析了 120 个样本中的 299 个、217 个细菌 16S rRNA 基因序列。
首先，与正常个体相比，胆结石患者肠道细菌门 Proteobacteria 的丰度显著增加（P < 0.001），而 Faecalibacterium、Lachnospira 和 Roseburia 三个肠道细菌属的丰度显著降低。其次，约 70%的胆结石患者肠道细菌的操作分类单元（OTUs）可在胆道中检测到，并且胆道的细菌多样性明显高于肠道（P < 0.001）。第三，对胆结石患者胆道核心微生物组（由 106 个细菌 OTUs 代表）的分析表明，33.96%（36/106）的组成成分可与已知细菌种相匹配（其中 15 种具有公开的基因组）。对与胆固醇胆结石形成相关的 MDR、BSH、bG 和 phL 基因的全基因组搜索表明，所有 15 个具有已知基因组的种（例如，痤疮丙酸杆菌、普通拟杆菌和恶臭假单胞菌）至少含有这四个基因中的一个。这一发现可能为解释胆道微生物群与胆固醇胆结石形成之间的关联提供了潜在的信息。
据我们所知，这是首次发现胆结石患者肠道微生物群失调，这可能是与胆固醇胆结石存在相关的复杂细菌群落组装的关键因素。同样，本研究还首次提供了与胆固醇胆结石相关的胆道微生物群的大规模观察结果。这种对胆道核心微生物组的描述可能对细菌在胆固醇胆结石形成中的作用具有重要的生物学和医学意义。
