Altered Fecal Microbiota Signatures in Patients With Anxiety and Depression in the Gastrointestinal Cancer Screening: A Case-Control Study

Abstract

Background: Increasing attention has been devoted to cancer screening and microbiota in recent decades, but currently there is less focus on microbiota characterization among screeners and its relationship to anxiety and depression.Methods: We characterized the microbial communities of fecal samples collected through the FOBT card from anxiety and depression screeners and paired controls in Henan, China (1:2, N = 69). DNA was extracted using the MOBIO PowerSoil kit. The V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was sequenced using MiniSeq and processed using QIIME1. LEfSe was used to identify differentially abundant microbes, the Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to test alpha diversity differences, and permutational multivariate analysis of variance was used to test for differences in beta diversity.Results: Similar fecal microbiota signatures in composition were found among screeners. The intestinal microbial environments by phylum were all composed primarily of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Proteobacteria, and the corresponding top genera were Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, and Prevotella. Compared with controls, the ranking of the top five genera in the anxiety and depression group changed, and the dominant genus was Prevotella in the anxiety and depression group and Faecalibacterium in the control group. There was a lower relative abundance of Gemmiger (1.4 vs. 2.3%, P = 0.025), Ruminococcus (0.6 vs. 0.8%, P = 0.037), and Veillonella (0.6 vs. 1.3%, P = 0.020). This may be linked to the lower alpha diversity in participants with anxiety and depression (Observed OTUs: 122.35 vs. 143.24; Chao1: 127.35 vs. 149.98), although no significant differences were observed. Distinct clustering in microbial composition between the two groups was detected for the Jaccard distance (P = 0.011).Conclusions: Our study showed differing microbial characterization among participants with anxiety and depression in the endoscopic screening of upper gastrointestinal cancer. Gemmiger, Ruminococcus, and Veillonella were informative and have potential clinical implications, which need to be confirmed by large-scale, prospective cohort studies and biological mechanism research.

Adverse childhood trauma and reoccurrence of illness impact the gut microbiome, which affects suicidal behaviors and the phenome of major depression: towards enterotypic-phenotypes

“…The phenome evaluates the severity of the combination of several depressive features, and as a quantitative score, and provides more information than MDD, which is an incorrect model (see Introduction). Comparing the results of the present investigation conducted on Thai MDD patients with those of previous LefSe studies conducted in other cultures and nations reveals almost no agreement (Zhang et al 2022;Zhao et al, 2022;Ling et al, 2022;Liu et al, 2022;Jiang et al, 2015;Zhu et al, 2021;Painold et al, 2018;Tsai et al, 2022). Notably, the LefSe study published by Liu et al (2022) revealed a higher abundance of Clostridium in the control group, which is consistent with a lower abundance being related to the depressive phenome in the current study.…”

“…The latter phylum contains numerous pathogens that can induce intestinal (e.g., inflammatory gut disease) and metabolic diseases, in addition to lung diseases (Rizzati et al, 2017). Additionally, the prevalence of Proteobacteria is linked to inflammatory reactions, elevated IgA levels, and TMA production (Li et al, 2021). Deficits in the Stroop test (showing dysfunctions in processing speed, cognitive flexibility, selective attention, and executive functioning) were related to an increase in the abundance of Dialister and a decrease in Intestinimonas abundance.…”

Exploration of the gut microbiome in Thai patients with major depressive disorder uncovered a specific bacterial profile with depletion of theRuminococcusgenus as a putative biomarker

“…Maybe the most consistent finding in the reviewed literature, is the higher relative abundance of Ruminococcus , which is increased in ours and some other studies [38,79, 80, 81], whereas one study reported contradictory results [78]. Additionally, utilizing bidirectional Mendelian randomization, Chen et al [85] discovered that Ruminococcus protects against MDD.…”

“…LEfSe analysis performed on patients with depression and anxiety in the screening for gastro-intestinal cancer confirmed that Gemmiger and Ruminococcus were overabundant in controls, but none of the other taxa were discriminant features [80]. In a study examining the microbiome in a major depressive episode associated with BD, LEfSe analysis revealed differentially abundant features, including increased abundance of the phylum Actinobacteria and the class Coriobacteria, whereas Faecalibacterium genus and Ruminococcaceae family were more abundant in controls [81].…”

Understanding the basis of major depressive disorder in oncological patients: Biological links, clinical management, challenges, and lifestyle medicine

“…In accordance with these results, prior studies have demonstrated that depressed patients with breast cancer exhibit lower gut microbiota diversity, with an augmented relative abundance of Proteobacteria and Escherichia-Shigella than non-depressed patients, with a poorquality diet essential to understanding these changes (51). Likewise, patients with gastrointestinal cancer and depressive symptoms showed a reduced relative abundance of Gemmiger, Ruminococcus, and Veillonella and a lower alpha diversity in fecal samples (52). Notwithstanding that it is difficult to find out if gut microbiota is a cause or a consequence of the link between cancer and MDD, it seems that oncological patients with MDD may present a distinctive gut microbiota signature in comparison to those without depression.…”