Regional distribution of and its associations with metabolic syndrome based on a population-level analysis.

The link between the gut microbiota and metabolic syndrome (MetS) has attracted widespread attention. was recently described as an important player in human health, while its distribution and relationship with MetS in Chinese population is still unknown. This study sought to observe the association between and metabolic indexes in a large sample of residents in South China. A total of 4,781 people from the GGMP project were included, and the fecal microbiota composition of these individuals was characterized by 16S rRNA sequencing and analyzed the relation between and metabolism using QIIME (Quantitative Insight Into Microbial Ecology, Version 1.9.1). The results demonstrated that microbial richness and diversity were increased in the group with a high abundance of , who showed a greater complexity of the co-occurrence network with other bacteria than residents who lacked . The enriched bacterial taxa were predominantly represented by , , , and as the abundance increased, while the abundances of , and were significantly reduced. Furthermore, was negatively correlated with the pathological features of MetS, such as obesity, hypertriglyceridemia and body mass index (BMI). We found reduced levels of lipid biosynthesis and energy metabolism pathways in people with a high abundance of , which may explain the negative relationship between body weight and . In conclusion, we found a negative correlation between and MetS in a large Chinese population and reported the geographical distribution of in the GGMP study. The association data from this population-level research support the investigation of strains within as potentially beneficial gut microbes.