Quyushengxin Formula Causes Differences in Bacterial and Phage Composition in Ulcerative Colitis Patients.

BACKGROUND

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the colon and the rectum. Recently, some studies have shown that microorganisms in the gut play important roles in many chronic diseases such as UC.

METHODS

To study the candidate viruses and bacteria involved in UC and to investigate the therapeutic mechanism of Quyushengxin formula (QYSX) in UC patients, metagenomic sequencing was performed on the feces from healthy donors and UC patients before and after QYSX treatment.

RESULTS

QYSX improved the symptoms of UC. In all participants, and were the most dominant viruses. The abundance of in UC patients was significantly higher than that in the normal controls, while QYSX restored abundance. Furthermore, the abundance of was enhanced in UC patients compared with the normal control, while the diversity was then decreased after QYSX treatment. However, there was no significant difference ( > 0.05). Additionally, other non- bacteriophages including , , and were higher in UC patients and QYSX decreased these viruses, while the trends of , , and were adverse. Interestingly, was only found in UC patients before and after QYSX treatment. In addition, , , , , and were the biomarkers in UC patients after QYSX treatment due to their high abundance. GO terms and KEGG analysis showed that the identified gut microbiome was involved in many biological processes and pathways.

CONCLUSIONS

QYSX could regulate disordered gut microbiome and phages, indicating that QYSX has great therapeutic potential for UC.