Desulfovibrio is not always associated with adverse health effects in the Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project

Yi-Ran Chen; Qin-Long Jing; Fang-Lan Chen; Huimin Zheng; Li-Dan Chen; Zhi-Cong Yang

doi:10.7717/peerj.12033

Desulfovibrio is not always associated with adverse health effects in the Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project

PeerJ. 2021 Aug 18:9:e12033. doi: 10.7717/peerj.12033. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Yi-Ran Chen^#¹, Qin-Long Jing^#¹, Fang-Lan Chen², Huimin Zheng³, Li-Dan Chen⁴, Zhi-Cong Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Public Health, Guangzhou Medical University & Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
² Department of Intensive Care Unit, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
³ Department of Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁴ Department of Laboratory Medicine, General Hospital of Southern Theatre Command of PLA, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Desulfovibrio (DSV) is frequently found in the human intestine but limited knowledge is available regarding the relationship between DSV and host health. In this study, we analyzed large-scale cohort data from the Guangdong Gut Microbiome Project to study the ecology of DSV and the associations of DSV and host health parameters. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Desulfovibrio piger might be the most common and abundant DSV species in the GGMP. Predominant sub-OTUs of DSV were positively associated with bacterial community diversity. The relative abundance of DSV was positively correlated with beneficial genera, including Oscillospira, Coprococcus,Ruminococcus,Akkermansia, Roseburia,Faecalibacterium, andBacteroides, and was negatively associated with harmful genera, such as Clostridium,Escherichia,Klebsiella, and Ralstonia. Moreover, the relative abundance of DSV was negatively correlated with body mass index, waist size, triglyceride levels, and uric acid levels. This suggests that DSV is associated with healthy hosts in some human populations.

Keywords: Correlation; Desulfovibrio; Gut microbiota; Host parameters; Microbial community.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (201804010121) and Project for Key Medicine Discipline Construction of Guangzhou Municipality (grant number 2017-2019-04). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.