Huang Minshi, Liu Kevin, Wei Zhen, Feng Zhe, Chen Jierong, Yang Jie, Zhong Qin, Wan Guobin, Kong Xue-Jun
Department of Child Psychology and Rehabilitation, Affiliated Shenzhen Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, China.
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States.
Front Neurosci. 2021 Oct 1;15:721884. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.721884. eCollection 2021.
To investigate the levels of serum oxytocin (OT) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and explore the association between OT levels and gut microbiota relative abundances, we recruited 39 children with ASD children-mother dyads and 44 healthy controls. Serum OT levels were determined enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and gut microbiota abundances were determined by 16S rRNA sequencing. We found that the OT level of ASD was lower than the healthy control group overall ( < 0.05). Furthermore, we present preliminary evidence of gut microbiome dysbiosis observed among children with ASD to lower levels of OT based on correlational analysis between serum OT and specific gut microbiota abundances ( < 0.05). We also found sex-related differences in serum OT levels and GIS index ( < 0.05). However, the generalizability of findings relevant to females with ASD require further validation in future studies involving larger sample sizes and balanced sex distributions due to the small number of females involved in this study. Nonetheless, these new findings further our understanding of the effects of low serum OT levels among individuals with ASD, which provides preliminary evidence in hopes of guiding future study design or mechanistic studies. The findings of the present study may be suggestive of potential ASD subtypes based on ASD severity and gut microbiome composition that may facilitate the prediction of the therapeutic responses of OT among those with ASD.
为了研究自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的血清催产素（OT）水平，并探讨OT水平与肠道微生物群相对丰度之间的关联，我们招募了39对患有ASD的儿童及其母亲以及44名健康对照。采用酶联免疫吸附测定法测定血清OT水平，通过16S rRNA测序测定肠道微生物群丰度。我们发现，总体上ASD儿童的OT水平低于健康对照组（P<0.05）。此外，基于血清OT与特定肠道微生物群丰度之间的相关性分析（P<0.05），我们提供了初步证据，表明ASD儿童中观察到的肠道微生物群失调与较低的OT水平有关。我们还发现血清OT水平和GIS指数存在性别差异（P<0.05）。然而，由于本研究中纳入的女性数量较少，与ASD女性相关的研究结果的普遍性需要在未来涉及更大样本量和均衡性别分布的研究中进一步验证。尽管如此，这些新发现加深了我们对ASD个体中低血清OT水平影响的理解，为指导未来的研究设计或机制研究提供了初步证据。本研究结果可能提示基于ASD严重程度和肠道微生物群组成的潜在ASD亚型，这可能有助于预测ASD患者中OT的治疗反应。
