Distinct common signatures of gut microbiota associated with damp-heat syndrome in patients with different chronic liver diseases

Abstract

Background: Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are prevalent in China. According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theory, damp-heat (DH) syndrome is common in chronic liver disease. However, the biological characteristics related to quantitative diagnosis remain to be determined. This study aimed to identify the consistent alterations in the gut microbiota associated with DH syndrome in patients with CHB or NAFLD.Methods: A total of 405 individuals were recruited, of which 146 were participants who met the consistent TCM diagnosis by three senior TCM physicians and were typical syndromes. All participants were required to provide fresh stool and serum samples. The gut microbiota was assessed by fecal 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and the serum metabolite profiles of participants were quantified by an ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) system. DH syndrome-related bacteria taxa were identified based on the 146 individuals with typical syndromes and validated in all 405 volunteers.Results: The results showed that CHB and NAFLD patients with typical TCM DH syndrome had consistently elevated serum total bile acid (TBA) levels. Significant alterations in microbial community were observed according to TCM syndromes identification. A total of 870 microbial operational taxonomic units and 21 serum metabolites showed the same variation trends in both the CHB and NAFLD DH syndrome groups. The functional analysis predicts consistent dysregulation of bile acid metabolism. Five genera (Agathobacter, Dorea, Lachnospiraceae_NC2004_group, Subdoligranulum, and unclassified_c__Clostridia) significantly decreased in abundance in patients with DH syndrome. We utilize these five genera combined with TBA to construct a random forest classifier model to predict TCM diagnosis. The diagnostic receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) areas for DH syndrome were 0.818 and 0.791 in internal tenfold cross-validation and the test set based on all 405 individuals, respectively.Conclusion: There are common signatures of gut microbiota associated with DH syndrome in patients with different chronic liver diseases. Serum TBA combined with DH-related genera provides a good diagnostic potential for DH syndrome in chronic liver disease.

Rosemary extract improves egg quality by altering gut barrier function, intestinal microbiota, and oviductal gene expressions in late-phase laying hens

“…Paraprevotella, Papillibacter, and Butyricimonas were associated with butyrate generation in the intestine, which was favorable to performance of chickens [29][30][31]. Moreover, unclassi ed_c__Clostridia has been implicated in the biosynthesis of SCFA [32]. Our study further demonstrated that Firmicutes, Eisenbergiella, Paraprevotella, unclassi ed_f__Erysipelotrichaceae, and Papillibacter were positively related to butyrate and Bacteroides was negatively related to butyrate.…”

Investigating causal associations among gut microbiota, metabolites, and liver diseases: a Mendelian randomization study

“…diagnosed 21 chronic hepatitis B and 42 NAFLD patients with the classic damp-heat (DH) syndrome group and identified 29 chronic hepatitis B and 28 NAFLD patients as the non-DH syndrome group. They found a decreased relative abundance of the Lachnospiraceae NC2004 group in patients with the DH syndrome compared to the non-DH syndrome ( 45 ). Taken together, these studies were in agreement with our MR analysis that this aforementioned genus plays a protective role in NAFLD.…”

Rosemary extract improves egg quality by altering gut barrier function, intestinal microbiota and oviductal gene expressions in late-phase laying hens

“…Paraprevotella , Papillibacter and Butyricimonas were associated with butyrate generation in the intestine, which was favorable to performance of chickens [ 36 – 38 ]. Moreover, unclassified_c__Clostridia has been implicated in the biosynthesis of SCFA [ 39 ]. Our study further demonstrated that Firmicutes, Eisenbergiella , Paraprevotella , u nclassified_f__Erysipelotrichaceae , and Papillibacter were positively related to butyrate and Bacteroides was negatively related to butyrate.…”