Gut Microbial Characteristics of Adult Patients With Epilepsy

Lian Dong; Qian Zheng; Yongran Cheng; Mengyun Zhou; Mingwei Wang; Jianwei Xu; Zucai Xu; Guofeng Wu; Yunli Yu; Lan Ye; Zhanhui Feng

doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.803538

Gut Microbial Characteristics of Adult Patients With Epilepsy

Front Neurosci. 2022 Feb 16:16:803538. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.803538. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lian Dong¹, Qian Zheng¹, Yongran Cheng², Mengyun Zhou³, Mingwei Wang⁴, Jianwei Xu⁵, Zucai Xu⁶, Guofeng Wu¹, Yunli Yu¹, Lan Ye⁷, Zhanhui Feng¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China.
² School of Public Health, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Nagano, Japan.
⁴ Department of Cardiology, Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
⁵ National Guizhou Joint Engineering Laboratory for Cell Engineering and Biomedicine Technique, Guizhou Province Key Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine, Center for Tissue Engineering and Stem Cell Research, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China.
⁶ Department of Neurology, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China.
⁷ The Medical Function Laboratory of Experimental Teaching Center of Basic Medicine, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China.

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the intestinal flora of patients with epilepsy and its correlation with epilepsy.

Methods: Patients with ages > 18 years were consecutively enrolled from the outpatient department, Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University from January 2018 to December 2019. A total of 71 subjects were recruited, including epilepsy patients (n = 41) as an observation group and patient family members (n = 30) as a control group. Fresh stool specimens of all the subjects were collected. The 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing was analyzed to determine changes in intestinal flora composition and its correlation with epilepsy. Subgroup analysis was then conducted. All patients with epilepsy were divided into an urban group (n = 21) and a rural group (n = 20) according to the region, and bioinformatics analyses were repeated between subgroups.

Results: LEfSe analysis showed that Fusobacterium, Megasphaera, Alloprevotella, and Sutterella had relatively increased abundance in the epilepsy group at the genus level. Correlation analysis suggested that Fusobacterium sp. (r = 0.584, P < 0.01), Fusobacterium mortiferum (r = 0.560, P < 0.01), Ruminococcus gnavus (r = 0.541, P < 0.01), and Bacteroides fragilis (r = 0.506, P < 0.01) were significantly positively correlated with the occurrence of epilepsy (r ≥ 0.5, P < 0.05). PICRUSt function prediction analysis showed that there were significant differences in 16 pathways between the groups at level 3. Comparing the rural group with the urban group, Proteobacteria increased at the phylum level and Escherichia coli, Fusobacterium varium, Prevotella stercorea, and Prevotellaceae bacterium DJF VR15 increased at the species level in the rural group.

Conclusion: There were significant differences in the composition and functional pathways of gut flora between epilepsy patients and patient family members. The Fusobacterium may become a potential biomarker for the diagnosis of epilepsy.

Keywords: 16S rRNA; PICRUSt; biomarkers; epilepsy; gut microbiota; microbiota-gut-brain axis.