Effects of Age and Region on Fecal Microflora in Elderly Subjects Living in Bama, Guangxi, China

Abstract

Intestinal microflora analysis was performed on 52 healthy elderly subjects of different ages and in different regions in Bama County, Guangxi, China. The participants were assigned to three groups depending on their age and location: longevous (group M; mean age = 98 years; n = 21); rural younger elderly (group S; mean age = 70 years; n = 18); and urban elderly (group C; mean age = 82 years; n = 13). Ten groups of bacteria were quantified using real-time PCR. Age-related differences were observed in the number of Clostridium coccoides-Eubacterium rectale--there were more in longevous participants. Region affected the numbers of Bacteroides--Prevotella and Clostridium perfringens subgroup, and longevous participants had significantly more of the two bacterial groups than urban elderly participants. Region-related effects were also observed for the relative abundance of E. coli, and rural elderly participants had a lower proportion. Both age and regional effects were observed in the amount of total bacteria, and longevous participants had higher numbers than urban elderly participants. A significantly higher proportion of lactobacilli was observed in rural younger elderly participants than urban elderly participants, but independent age or regional effects did not contribute to this difference. This study suggests that age and region can affect the intestinal microflora of elderly people.

Correlations of fecal bacterial communities with age and living region for the elderly living in Bama, Guangxi, China

“…Although the abundance of these strains (two Bacteroides strains and one Ruminococcaceae strain) decreased with host age, they "preferred living" in the rural elderly in Bama. Similar results were also obtained in our previous study: a high level of Bacteroides-Prevotella was observed in the rural longevous participants of Bama (Zhao et al, 2010). These results suggested that living in the rural region of Bama could "enrich" these potential beneficial strains, and "keep" them from decreasing with the age of the elderly.…”

“…3), who was a longevous female living in the rural region of Bama. This is consistent with our previous study, in which as high as 9.5% of Bifidobacterium in total intestinal bacteria was observed in the same subject (Zhao et al, 2010). Although not each longevous participant in Bama has such high abundance of Bifidobacterium in their intestine, an unusually high level of these bacteria in several longevous people suggest an interesting relationship between Bifidobacterium and human aging.…”

“…In this study, the Bifidobacteria were not detected in the t-value biplots, indicating a relatively stabilized abundance among the subjects, as shown in a previous study (Zhao et al, 2010). However, we observed two Bifidobacterium bands with high relative intensity in the sample from Subject RL6 (Fig.…”

“…Based on a culture-independent method, our earlier study showed significant effects of age and living region on the number of specific intestinal bacterial groups in the elderly of Bama (Zhao et al, 2010). Together with research Zhang et al (1994) previous results had been limited to bacterial groups detected by selective cultivation or real-time PCR.…”

Integrated Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analysis of the Bile Stress Response in a Centenarian-originated Probiotic Bifidobacterium longum BBMN68

“…longum BBMN68 was isolated from a healthy centenarian in the Bama County of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China, which is famous for having a population with a high life-expectancy. Previous study showed that the proportion of bifidobacteria could reach up to 9.59% in the feces from the 90 -109 years old population in a Bama suburb using real-time PCR and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (20,21). Further study in our research group indicated that several remarkable characteristics of strain BBMN68 at the genome level, such as a higher abundance of genes associated with carbohydrate transport-metabolism category and two genes encoding bacteriocin, may be beneficial to the long-term colonization of BBMN68 in the human GIT (22).…”