Gut microbiota dysbiosis associated with plasma levels of Interferon‐γ and viral load in patients with acute hepatitis E infection

Abstract

Few studies have focused on the effect of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection on gut microbiota. To explore the relationship between changes in gut microbiota and inflammatory factors and viral load, we conducted a comparative study of 33 patients with acute hepatitis E (AHE) patients and 25 healthy controls (HCs) using highthroughput 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid gene sequencing. Shannon and Simpson's indices showed no significant differences in bacterial diversity between the AHE and HCs groups. Proteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Enterobacteriaceae were most abundant in the AHE group, which contributed to the difference between the gut microbiota of the AHE and HCs groups, and the same difference between the HEV-RNA-positive and HEV-RNA-negative groups. Functional prediction analysis showed that ribosome, purine metabolism, and two-component system were the top three pathways. Compared with the AHE group with normal interferon (IFN)-γ, Proteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Xanthomonadaceae, and Enterobacteriaceae were more abundant in the high-IFN-γ group. The abundance of Gammaproteobacteria was positively correlated with the level of serum alanine transaminase and total bilirubin. The abundance of Gammaproteobacteria could discriminate AHE patients from HCs, and could better predict the severity of AHE patients. We believe that our findings will contribute toward a novel treatment strategy for AHE.

Role of Microbiota in Viral Infections and Pathological Progression

“…Like HAV, only a few reports have been published on the alteration of the intestinal microbiota in acute HEV infection. The composition of the microbiota is altered in patients with acute hepatitis E (AHE), compared with that in healthy subjects, and the abundance of some bacteria (Proteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Enterobacteriaceae) is related to the amount of interferon-gamma secreted [ 95 ]. In this report, the presence of Gammaproteobacteria was positively correlated with the serum alanine transaminase and total bilirubin levels, suggesting that the presence of Gammaproteobacteria may serve as an indicator to identify patients with AHE and to more accurately predict the severity.…”

Metabolomic and gut microbiome profiles across the spectrum of community-based COVID and non-COVID disease: A COVID-19 Biobank study

“…Here, timing of our sampling is highly relevant to the interpretation of our results. Alterations in an individual’s microbiome may occur in the context of acute disease, 65 whether from infection, dietary changes, medication, usage, and/or immune function; however, an individual’s microbiome regresses over time 66 to reflect a stable baseline microbiome 67,68 . Thus, faecal microbiome samples collected 9 months after the start of illness may represent baseline individual microbiome, which, in our study, did not relate to symptom duration.…”

Advances in multi-omics research on viral hepatitis

“…Thus, transcriptomics provides complete genomic data on the evolutionary relationships of avian HEV, which helps us further understand the evolution of HEV. Besides, Wu et al (2022a) performed the 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid gene sequencing, and they found that gut microbiota dysbiosis is associated with plasma levels of Interferon-γ and viral load in patients with acute hepatitis E infection. Overall, the investigation on HEV infection and related diseases using multi-omics are less, which requires more efforts.…”