Alterations in the fecal microbiota of patients with spinal cord injury

PLoS One. 2020 Aug 4;15(8):e0236470. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236470. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Objectives: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is associated with severe autonomic dysfunction. Patients with SCI often suffer from a lack of central nervous system control over the gastrointestinal system. Therefore, we hypothesized that patients with SCI would cause intestinal flora imbalance. We investigated alterations in the fecal microbiome in a group of patients with SCI.

Methods: Microbial communities in the feces of 23 patients and 23 healthy controls were investigated using high-throughput Illumina Miseq sequencing targeting the V3-V4 region of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene. The relative abundances between the fecal microbiota at the genus level in patients with SCI and healthy individuals were determined using cluster analysis.

Results: The structure and quantity of fecal microbiota differed significantly between patients with SCI and healthy controls, but the richness and diversity were not significantly different. A two-dimensional heatmap showed that the relative abundances of forty-five operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were significantly enriched either in SCI or healthy samples. Among these, 18 OTUs were more abundant in healthy controls than in patients with SCI, and 27 OTUs were more abundant in the SCI group than in healthy controls.

Conclusion: Our study showed that patients with SCI exhibited microbiome dysbiosis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Bacteria / classification
  • Bacteria / genetics
  • Dysbiosis / genetics
  • Dysbiosis / microbiology*
  • Dysbiosis / pathology
  • Feces / microbiology*
  • Female
  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome / genetics
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Microbiota / genetics*
  • Phylogeny
  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / genetics
  • Spinal Cord Injuries / genetics
  • Spinal Cord Injuries / microbiology*
  • Spinal Cord Injuries / pathology

Substances

  • RNA, Ribosomal, 16S

Grants and funding

This study was supported by Research and Development Plan of the 13th five-year of Ningxia Autonomous Region (the major S&T projects; Grant No.: 2016BZ02); The First Class Discipline Construction Project in Colleges and Universities of Ningxia (Grant No.: NXYLXK2017A05); and Project of General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University (Grant Nos.: 2015026 and 2015030). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.