Department of Maternal and Child Health and MOE (Ministry of Education) Key Lab of Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Maternity and Children Health Care Hospital of Luohu District, Shenzhen, China.
Autism Res. 2022 Jun;15(6):996-1007. doi: 10.1002/aur.2718. Epub 2022 Apr 11.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is associated with altered gut microbiota. However, there has been little consensus on the altered bacterial species and studies have had small sample sizes. We aimed to identify the taxonomic composition and evaluate the changes in the fecal microbiota in Chinese children with ASD by using a relatively large sample size. We conducted a case-control study of 101 children with ASD and 103 healthy controls in China. Demographic information and fecal samples were collected, and the V3-V4 hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene were sequenced. The alpha and beta diversities between the two groups were significantly different. After correcting for multiple comparisons, at the phylum level the relative abundances of Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria in the case group were significantly higher than those in the control group. The relative abundance of the Escherichia-Shigella genus in the case group was significantly higher than that of the control group, and the relative abundance of Blautia and unclassified_f__Lachnospiraceae in the control group were higher than that of the case group. Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States analysis showed that children with ASD may have disturbed functional pathways, such as amino acid metabolism, cofactor and vitamin metabolism, and the AMP-activated protein kinase signaling pathway. This study revealed the characteristics of the intestinal flora of Chinese children with ASD and provided further evidence of gut microbial dysbiosis in ASD. LAY SUMMARY: This study characterized the gut microbiota composition of 101 children with ASD and 103 healthy controls in China. The altered gut microbiota may contribute significantly to the risk of ASD, including significant increases in the relative abundances of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Escherichia-Shigella and significant decrease of Blautia and unclassified_f__Lachnospiraceae. This study provided further evidence of gut microbial dysbiosis in ASD.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）与肠道微生物群改变有关。然而，对于改变的细菌种类，研究结果尚未达成共识，而且研究的样本量较小。我们旨在通过使用较大的样本量，确定中国 ASD 儿童的分类组成，并评估粪便微生物群的变化。
我们在中国进行了一项病例对照研究，纳入了 101 名 ASD 儿童和 103 名健康对照。收集人口统计学信息和粪便样本，并对细菌 16S 核糖体 RNA（rRNA）基因的 V3-V4 高变区进行测序。两组之间的α和β多样性有显著差异。在进行多重比较校正后，在门水平上，病例组放线菌和变形菌的相对丰度明显高于对照组。病例组大肠杆菌-志贺氏菌属的相对丰度明显高于对照组，而对照组布劳氏菌和未分类 f__lachnospiraceae 的相对丰度高于病例组。群落重建未观察状态分析的系统发育研究表明，ASD 儿童可能存在功能途径紊乱，如氨基酸代谢、辅助因子和维生素代谢以及 AMP 激活蛋白激酶信号通路。
本研究揭示了中国 ASD 儿童肠道菌群的特征，并为 ASD 中肠道微生物失调提供了进一步证据。
