Changes and roles of intestinal fungal microbiota in coronary heart disease complicated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

BACKGROUND

Patients who suffered coronary heart disease (CHD) complicated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) were reported to have worse cardiac function and clinical outcomes than patients with CHD only. The mechanism was unclear. Previous study focused on the metabolism and showed it could be regulated by the microbiota. Few studies related to fungi. We aimed to investigate the characteristics of intestinal fungal microbiota in CHD patients complicated with NAFLD (CHD-NAFLD).

METHODS

72 People were recruited and equally divided into three groups, including CHD patients (without NAFLD), CHD-NAFLD patients, and healthy controls (HCs). Fecal samples were collected. The Illumina sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer 3-4 rRNA was applied.

RESULTS

The BMI, uric acid and triglyceride in CHD-NAFLD patients increased compared with CHD patients. The abundance of and in all CHD-NAFLD and CHD patients significantly reduced. The intestinal fungal microbiota in CHD-NAFLD patients showed an increase in the abundance of , and , and a reduction in the abundance of and . Among them, the abundance of was significantly lower than that in CHD patients. The ejection fraction was negatively correlated to the abundance of . Uric acid was positively correlated with the abundance of and .

CONCLUSIONS

These changes of intestinal fungal microbiota in CHD-NAFLD patients may be important factors affecting the degree of metabolic disorder. But there are few reports on these fungi. More studies are needed to confirm the effects of these fungi on human.