Ma Xiaoqian, Asif Huma, Dai Lulin, He Ying, Zheng Wenxiao, Wang Dong, Ren Honghong, Tang Jinsong, Li Chunwang, Jin Ke, Li Zongchang, Chen Xiaogang
Department of Psychiatry, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The University of Chicago, Chicago, USA.
J Psychiatr Res. 2020 Apr;123:136-144. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.02.005. Epub 2020 Feb 8.
The human gut microbiome plays an important role in the basic neurodevelopmental processes of the central nervous system and has been implicated in several neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the connection between the gut microbiome and the underlying pathogenesis of schizophrenia (SCZ) is poorly defined. Here we analyzed the faecal samples from 40 first-episode drug-naïve SCZ (FSCZ) patients, 85 chronically antipsychotic-treated SCZ (TSCZ) patients and 69 healthy controls (HCs) using 16S rRNA gene sequence to determine whether the alterations of the gut microbiome were associated with SCZ or antipsychotic treatment. In addition, we acquired the T1-weighted brain imaging data by using structural magnetic resonance imaging to test whether microbial composition correlated with structural brain signatures. Our analyses revealed low microbiome alpha-diversity indexes in TSCZ patients but not in FSCZ patients as compared to HCs. Importantly, both FSCZ and TSCZ patients had distinct changes in gut microbial composition at certain taxa including Christensenellaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Pasteurellaceae, Turicibacteraceae at the family level and Escherichia at genus level as compared to HCs. We also found significant disturbances of gut microbial composition in TSCZ versus FSCZ patients (eg. Enterococcaceae and Lactobacillaceae). Most interestingly, our exploratory analyses found specific SCZ-associated microbiota to be correlated with the right middle frontal gyrus (rMFG) volume which was aberrant in SCZ patients. Our findings extend prior work and suggest a possible link between the gut microbiome and brain structure which may be implicated in the pathology of SCZ.
人类肠道微生物群在中枢神经系统的基本神经发育过程中发挥着重要作用，并与多种神经精神疾病有关。然而，肠道微生物群与精神分裂症（SCZ）潜在发病机制之间的联系尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用16S rRNA基因序列分析了40例首发未用药的SCZ（FSCZ）患者、85例长期接受抗精神病药物治疗的SCZ（TSCZ）患者和69例健康对照（HCs）的粪便样本，以确定肠道微生物群的改变是否与SCZ或抗精神病药物治疗有关。此外，我们通过结构磁共振成像获取了T1加权脑成像数据，以测试微生物组成是否与脑结构特征相关。我们的分析显示，与HCs相比，TSCZ患者的微生物群α多样性指数较低，但FSCZ患者没有。重要的是，与HCs相比，FSCZ和TSCZ患者在某些分类群中肠道微生物组成都有明显变化，包括科水平的克里斯滕森菌科、肠杆菌科、巴斯德菌科、Turicibacteraceae和属水平的埃希氏菌属。我们还发现TSCZ患者与FSCZ患者的肠道微生物组成存在显著差异（例如肠球菌科和乳杆菌科）。最有趣的是，我们的探索性分析发现，特定的SCZ相关微生物群与SCZ患者中异常的右侧额中回（rMFG）体积相关。我们的研究结果扩展了先前的工作，并表明肠道微生物群与脑结构之间可能存在联系，这可能与SCZ的病理有关。
