Department of Pathology, Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States of America.
University of Iowa College of Dentistry, Iowa City, IA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Apr 26;17(4):e0264556. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264556. eCollection 2022.
Trillions of microbes such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses exist in the healthy human gut microbiome. Although gut bacterial dysbiosis has been extensively studied in multiple sclerosis (MS), the significance of the fungal microbiome (mycobiome) is an understudied and neglected part of the intestinal microbiome in MS. The aim of this study was to characterize the gut mycobiome of patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), compare it to healthy controls, and examine its association with changes in the bacterial microbiome. We characterized and compared the mycobiome of 20 RRMS patients and 33 healthy controls (HC) using Internal Transcribed Spacer 2 (ITS2) and compared mycobiome interactions with the bacterial microbiome using 16S rRNA sequencing. Our results demonstrate an altered mycobiome in RRMS patients compared with HC. RRMS patients showed an increased abundance of Basidiomycota and decreased Ascomycota at the phylum level with an increased abundance of Candida and Epicoccum genera along with a decreased abundance of Saccharomyces compared to HC. We also observed an increased ITS2/16S ratio, altered fungal and bacterial associations, and altered fungal functional profiles in MS patients compared to HC. This study demonstrates that RRMS patients had a distinct mycobiome with associated changes in the bacterial microbiome compared to HC. There is an increased fungal to bacterial ratio as well as more diverse fungal-bacterial interactions in RRMS patients compared to HC. Our study is the first step towards future studies in delineating the mechanisms through which the fungal microbiome can influence MS disease.
在健康的人类肠道微生物组中，存在着数万亿种微生物，如细菌、真菌和病毒。尽管肠道细菌失调在多发性硬化症（MS）中已经得到广泛研究，但真菌微生物组（真菌组）的意义是 MS 肠道微生物组中一个研究不足和被忽视的部分。本研究旨在描述复发性缓解型多发性硬化症（RRMS）患者的肠道真菌组，将其与健康对照组进行比较，并研究其与细菌微生物组变化的关系。我们使用内部转录间隔区 2（ITS2）对 20 名 RRMS 患者和 33 名健康对照者（HC）的真菌组进行了特征描述和比较，并使用 16S rRNA 测序比较了真菌组与细菌微生物组的相互作用。我们的结果表明，RRMS 患者的真菌组与 HC 相比发生了改变。RRMS 患者在门水平上显示出 Basidiomycota 的丰度增加和 Ascomycota 的丰度减少，与 HC 相比，Candida 和 Epicoccum 属的丰度增加，而 Saccharomyces 的丰度减少。与 HC 相比，我们还观察到 MS 患者的 ITS2/16S 比值增加、真菌和细菌关联改变以及真菌功能谱改变。这项研究表明，RRMS 患者的真菌组与 HC 相比具有明显不同的特征，并且与 HC 相比，细菌微生物组也发生了变化。与 HC 相比，RRMS 患者的真菌与细菌比例增加，真菌与细菌的相互作用更加多样化。我们的研究是朝着阐明真菌微生物组如何影响 MS 疾病的机制的未来研究迈出的第一步。
