The altered gut microbiota of high-purine-induced hyperuricemia rats and its correlation with hyperuricemia

Xiu Liu; Qiulan Lv; Hongyan Ren; Liu Gao; Peng Zhao; Xiaomin Yang; Guanpin Yang; Daxing Xu; Guangtao Wang; Wan Yang; Pengjun Wang; Zenglan Wang; Shichao Xing

doi:10.7717/peerj.8664

The altered gut microbiota of high-purine-induced hyperuricemia rats and its correlation with hyperuricemia

PeerJ. 2020 Mar 6:8:e8664. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8664. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Xiu Liu¹, Qiulan Lv², Hongyan Ren³, Liu Gao⁴, Peng Zhao², Xiaomin Yang², Guanpin Yang⁵, Daxing Xu¹, Guangtao Wang², Wan Yang¹, Pengjun Wang², Zenglan Wang¹, Shichao Xing^{1

2

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathogenic Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
² Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
³ Shanghai Itechgene Technology Co.,Ltd, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Medical Department of 3SBio Group, Shanghai, China.
⁵ The Key Laboratory of Mariculture of Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.
⁶ Institute of Sports Medicine and Health, Qingdao, China.
⁷ School of Cardiovascular Medicine and Science, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Some studies on the hyperuricemia (HUA) have focused on intestinal bacteria. To better understand the correlation between gut microbiota and HUA, we established a HUA rat model with high-purine diet, and used 16S rRNA genes sequencing to analyze gut microbiota changes in HUA rats. To analyze the potential role played by gut microbiota in HUA, we altered the gut microbiota of HUA rats with antibiotics, and compared the degree of uric acid elevation between HUA and antibiotic-fed HUA rats (Ab+HUA). Finally, we established a recipient rat model, in which we transplanted fecal microbiota of HUA and normal rats into recipient rats. Three weeks later, we compared the uric acid content of recipient rats. As a result, the diversity and abundance of the gut microbiota had changed in HUA rats. The Ab-fed HUA rats had significantly lower uric acid content compared to the HUA rats, and gut microbiota from HUA rats increased uric acid content of recipient rats. The genera Vallitalea, Christensenella and Insolitispirillum may associate with HUA. Our findings highlight the association between gut microbiota and HUA, and the potential role played by gut microbiota in HUA. We hope that this finding will promote the isolation and culture of HUA-related bacteria and orient HUA-related studies from being correlational to mechanistic. These steps will therefore make it possible for us to treat HUA using gut microbiota as the target.

Keywords: Change; Correlation; Fecal microbiota transplantation; Gut microbiota; Gut microbiota disorder; Hyperuricemia.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81671625, 81100554, 81901575), The Young and Middle-Aged Scientists Research Awards Fund of Shandong Province (BS2012YY003), the Scientific and Technical Development Project of Department of Health of Shandong Province (2011QZ007 and 2016WS0259), the Shandong Province Natural Science Fund Project (ZR2018PH010 and ZR2014HM015), a Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (J14LK11) and the Scientific and Technical Development Project of Qingdao (12-1-4-20-jc, 2012-1-3-2-(1)-nsh, 2013-13-008-YY, 2014-1-72 and 17-3-3-15-nsh ). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.