Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a set of complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Recent studies reported that children with ASD have altered gut microbiota profiles compared with typical development (TD) children. However, few studies on gut bacteria of children with ASD have been conducted in China. Here, in order to elucidate changes of fecal microbiota in children with ASD, 16S rRNA sequencing was conducted and the 16S rRNA (V3-V4) gene tags were amplified. We investigated differences in fecal microbiota between 35 children with ASD and 6 TD children. At the phylum level, the fecal microbiota of ASD group indicated a significant increase of the Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio. At the genus level, we found that the relative abundance of Sutterella, Odoribacter and Butyricimonas was much more abundant in the ASD group whereas the abundance of Veillonella and Streptococcus was decreased significantly compared to the control group. Functional analysis demonstrated that butyrate and lactate producers were less abundant in the ASD group. In addition, we downloaded the association data set of microbe–disease from human microbe–disease association database and constructed a human disease network including ASD using our gut microbiome results. In this microbe–disease network based on microbe similarity of diseases, we found that ASD is positively correlated with periodontal, negatively related to type 1 diabetes. Therefore, these results suggest that microbe-based disease analysis is able to predict novel connection between ASD and other diseases and may play a role in revealing the pathogenesis of ASD.

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Growing evidence suggests that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is strongly associated with dysbiosis in the gut microbiome, with the exact mechanisms still unclear. We have proposed a novel analytic strategy—quasi-paired cohort—and applied it to a metagenomic study of the ASD microbiome. By comparing paired samples of ASD and neurotypical subjects, we have identified significant deficiencies in ASD children in detoxifying enzymes and pathways, which show a strong correlation with biomarkers of mitochondrial dysfunction. Diagnostic models based on these detoxifying enzymes accurately distinguished ASD individuals from controls, and the dysfunction score inferred from the model increased with the clinical rating scores of ASD. In summary, our results suggest a previously undiscovered potential role of impaired intestinal microbial detoxification in toxin accumulation and mitochondrial dysfunction, a core component of ASD pathogenesis. These findings pave the way for designing future therapeutic strategies to restore microbial detoxification capabilities for patients with ASD.

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The dissemination of official messages and the spreading of rumors are both key factors in emergency situations. In this paper, a coupled model is established to describe the interaction between official government communiques and the spreading of rumors during emergencies. The mathematical property of the proposed model is discussed, and the results showed that the official message diffusion has positive effects on thwarting rumor spreading. Three different scenarios for population behavior evolution are identified according to the degree of government involvement. The results shed new light to comprehend information dissemination in emergencies and provide some hint on how to limit the spreading of rumor within populations after emergency occur.