Alterations of the gut microbiota in type 2 diabetics with or without subclinical hypothyroidism

Yanrong Lv; Rong Liu; Huaijie Jia; Xiaolan Sun; Yuhan Gong; Li Ma; Wei Qiu; Xiaoxia Wang

doi:10.7717/peerj.15193

Alterations of the gut microbiota in type 2 diabetics with or without subclinical hypothyroidism

PeerJ. 2023 Apr 13:11:e15193. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15193. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yanrong Lv^#¹, Rong Liu^#¹, Huaijie Jia², Xiaolan Sun¹, Yuhan Gong¹, Li Ma¹, Wei Qiu³, Xiaoxia Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Veterinary of Etiological Biology, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou, China.
³ Department of Endocrinology, Xinxiang First People's Hospital, The Affiliated People's Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Diabetes and thyroid dysfunction are two closely related endocrine diseases. Increasing evidences show that gut microbiota plays an important role in both glucose metabolism and thyroid homeostasis. Meanwhile, copy number variation (CNV) of host salivary α-amylase gene (AMY1) has been shown to correlate with glucose homeostasis. Hence, we aim to characterize the gut microbiota and CNV of AMY1 in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with or without subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH).

Methods: High-throughput sequencing was used to analyze the gut microbiota of euthyroid T2D patients, T2D patients with SCH and healthy controls. Highly sensitive droplet digital PCR was used to measure AMY1 CN.

Results: Our results revealed that T2D patients have lower gut microbial diversity, no matter with or without SCH. The characteristic taxa of T2D patients were Coriobacteriales, Coriobacteriaceae, Peptostreptococcaceae, Pseudomonadaceae, Collinsella, Pseudomonas and Romboutsia. Meanwhile, Escherichia/Shigella, Lactobacillus_Oris, Parabacteroides Distasonis_ATCC_8503, Acetanaerobacterium, Lactonifactor, uncultured bacterium of Acetanaerobacterium were enriched in T2D patients with SCH. Moreover, serum levels of free triiodothyronine (FT3) and free thyroxine (FT4) in T2D patients were both negatively correlated with richness of gut microbiota. A number of specific taxa were also associated with clinical parameters at the phylum and genus level. In contrast, no correlation was found between AMY1 CN and T2D or T2D_SCH.

Conclusion: This study identified characteristic bacterial taxa in gut microbiota of T2D patients with or without SCH, as well as the taxa associated with clinical indices in T2D patients. These results might be exploited in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of endocrine disorders in the future.

Keywords: DNA copy number variation; Gut microbiota; Salivary α-amylase gene; Subclinical hypothyroidism; Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

DNA Copy Number Variations
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2* / complications
Gastrointestinal Microbiome* / genetics
Humans
Hypothyroidism*

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81501734, 81803308), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Chengguan District in Lanzhou (No. 2021-9-12), and the Undergraduate Research Experience Program (No. 202210730201) from the China National Research Fund and Supercomputing Center of Lanzhou University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.