Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Environment Factors and Cancer, School of Public Health, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China.
Ganzhou Municipal Hospital, 49 Dagonglu, Ganzhou, 341000, People's Republic of China.
J Med Case Rep. 2021 Feb 8;15(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s13256-020-02583-7.
To investigate the potential beneficial effect of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) on gastrointestinal symptoms, gut dysbiosis and immune status in discharged COVID-19 patients.
A total of 11 COVID-19 patients were recruited in April, 2020, about one month on average after they were discharged from the hospital. All subjects received FMT for 4 consecutive days by oral capsule administrations with 10 capsules for each day. In total, 5 out of 11 patients reported to be suffered from gastrointestinal symptoms, which were improved after FMT. After FMT, alterations of B cells were observed, which was characterized as decreased naive B cell (P = 0.012) and increased memory B cells (P = 0.001) and non-switched B cells (P = 0.012).The microbial community richness indicated by operational taxonomic units number, observed species and Chao1 estimator was marginally increased after FMT. Gut microbiome composition of discharged COVID-19 patients differed from that of the general population at both phylum and genera level, which was characterized with a lower proportion of Firmicutes (41.0%) and Actinobacteria (4.0%), higher proportion of Bacteroidetes (42.9%) and Proteobacteria (9.2%). FMT can partially restore the gut dysbiosis by increasing the relative abundance of Actinobacteria (15.0%) and reducing Proteobacteria (2.8%) at the phylum level. At the genera level, Bifidobacterium and Faecalibacterium had significantly increased after FMT.
After FMT, altered peripheral lymphocyte subset, restored gut microbiota and alleviated gastrointestinal disorders were observe, suggesting that FMT may serve as a potential therapeutic and rehabilitative intervention for the COVID-19.
研究粪便微生物群移植（FMT）对出院的 COVID-19 患者胃肠道症状、肠道菌群失调和免疫状态的潜在有益作用。
2020 年 4 月共招募了 11 名 COVID-19 患者，他们平均在出院后约一个月接受了 FMT。所有患者均通过口服胶囊进行 4 天连续给药，每天 10 粒。共有 5 名患者报告有胃肠道症状，FMT 后这些症状得到改善。FMT 后观察到 B 细胞的改变，表现为幼稚 B 细胞减少（P=0.012），记忆 B 细胞增加（P=0.001）和非转换 B 细胞增加（P=0.012）。FMT 后，通过操作分类单元数、观察到的物种和 Chao1 估计值表示的微生物群落丰富度略有增加。出院的 COVID-19 患者的肠道微生物组组成与普通人群在门和属水平上均存在差异，其特征是厚壁菌门（Firmicutes）和放线菌门（Actinobacteria）的比例较低（41.0%和 4.0%），拟杆菌门（Bacteroidetes）和变形菌门（Proteobacteria）的比例较高（42.9%和 9.2%）。FMT 可以通过增加厚壁菌门（Actinobacteria）的相对丰度（15.0%）和减少变形菌门（Proteobacteria）的相对丰度（2.8%）来部分恢复肠道菌群失调。在属水平上，FMT 后双歧杆菌和粪杆菌的丰度显著增加。
FMT 后观察到外周淋巴细胞亚群改变、肠道微生物群恢复和胃肠道紊乱缓解，表明 FMT 可能成为 COVID-19 的一种潜在治疗和康复干预措施。
