National Key Laboratory of Intelligent Tracking and Forecasting for Infectious Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, 102206, China.
Parasitol Res. 2023 Nov;122(11):2719-2727. doi: 10.1007/s00436-023-07973-6. Epub 2023 Sep 16.
The gut microbiota comprises the collective genomes of microbial symbionts and is composed of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protists within the gastrointestinal tract of a host. Although the literature associated with gut microbiota is increasing, studies on eukaryotes in the human gut are just beginning to surface. Blastocystis is one of the most common intestinal parasites of humans and animals and is estimated to colonise more than 1 billion people on a global scale. However, the understanding of the genetic characteristics of Blastocystis subtype (ST) at the genome level and its relationship with other members of the gut microbiota is still limited. In this study, by surveying the prevalence and genome characteristics of Blastocystis sp. ST3 in a Chinese population (prevalence % = 6.09%), the association of Blastocystis sp. ST3 with region and time and the structure of the resident gut bacterial population was clarified. We identified novel sequences (50 mitochondrial and 41 genome sequences) and determined their genetic diversity amongst strains within Blastocystis sp. ST3 (4.14 SNPs/kb). Furthermore, we found that colonisation of Blastocystis was strongly associated with increased bacterial richness and higher abundance of several anaerobes. Finally, we performed time series sampling on two Blastocystis-positive individuals and confirmed that Blastocystis could exist continually in the human gut microbiota and persist for a long time, even for 4 years.
肠道微生物群由微生物共生体的集体基因组组成，由宿主胃肠道内的细菌、真菌、病毒和原生动物组成。尽管与肠道微生物群相关的文献在不断增加，但人类肠道中真核生物的研究才刚刚开始出现。芽囊原虫是人类和动物最常见的肠道寄生虫之一，估计在全球范围内有超过 10 亿人定植。然而，对芽囊原虫亚型（ST）在基因组水平上的遗传特征及其与肠道其他微生物群成员的关系的理解仍然有限。在这项研究中，通过调查中国人群中芽囊原虫 ST3 的流行率和基因组特征（流行率%=6.09%），阐明了芽囊原虫 ST3 与地区和时间的关联以及常驻肠道细菌种群的结构。我们鉴定了新的序列（50 个线粒体和 41 个基因组序列），并确定了芽囊原虫 ST3 内菌株之间的遗传多样性（4.14 SNPs/kb）。此外，我们发现芽囊原虫定植与细菌丰富度增加和几种厌氧菌丰度升高密切相关。最后，我们对两名芽囊原虫阳性个体进行了时间序列采样，并证实芽囊原虫可以持续存在于人类肠道微生物群中，并长期存在，甚至长达 4 年。
