Alterations of the gut microbiota in patients with schizophrenia

Zhuocan Li; Xiangkun Tao; Dongfang Wang; Juncai Pu; Yiyun Liu; Siwen Gui; Xiaogang Zhong; Dan Yang; Haipeng Zhou; Wei Tao; Weiyi Chen; Xiaopeng Chen; Yue Chen; Xiang Chen; Peng Xie

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1366311

Alterations of the gut microbiota in patients with schizophrenia

Front Psychiatry. 2024 Mar 26:15:1366311. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1366311. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Zhuocan Li¹, Xiangkun Tao¹, Dongfang Wang^{1

2

3}, Juncai Pu^{1

2

4}, Yiyun Liu^{1

2

3}, Siwen Gui^{1

2

3}, Xiaogang Zhong^{1

2

5}, Dan Yang¹, Haipeng Zhou¹, Wei Tao¹, Weiyi Chen^{1

4}, Xiaopeng Chen^{1

4}, Yue Chen^{1

4}, Xiang Chen^{1

4}, Peng Xie^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ National Health Commission (NHC) Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment on Brain Functional Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
² Jinfeng Laboratory, Chongqing, China.
³ Chongqing Institute for Brain and Intelligence, Chongqing, China.
⁴ Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.
⁵ College of Basic Medicine, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder, of which molecular pathogenesis remains largely unknown. Accumulating evidence suggest that gut microbiota may affect brain function via the complex gut-brain axis, which may be a potential contributor to schizophrenia. However, the alteration of gut microbiota showed high heterogeneity across different studies. Therefore, this study aims to identify the consistently altered gut microbial taxa associated with schizophrenia.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search and synthesis of the up-to-date human gut microbiome studies on schizophrenia, and performed vote counting analyses to identify consistently changed microbiota. Further, we investigated the effects of potential confounders on the alteration of gut microbiota.

Results: We obtained 30 available clinical studies, and found that there was no strong evidence to support significant differences in α-diversity and β-diversity between schizophrenic patients and healthy controls. Among 428 differential gut microbial taxa collected from original studies, we found that 8 gut microbial taxa were consistently up-regulated in schizophrenic patients, including Proteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Lactobacillaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, Lactobacillus, Succinivibrio, Prevotella and Acidaminococcus. While 5 taxa were consistently down-regulated in schizophrenia, including Fusicatenibacter, Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, Coprococcus and Anaerostipes.

Discussion: These findings suggested that gut microbial changes in patients with schizophrenia were characterized by the depletion of anti-inflammatory butyrate-producing genera, and the enrichment of certain opportunistic bacteria genera and probiotics. This study contributes to further understanding the role of gut microbiota in schizophrenia, and developing microbiota-based diagnosis and therapy for schizophrenia.

Keywords: gut microbiota; gut-brain-axis; microbial biomarkers; microbial diversity; schizophrenia.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was funded by the Joint Project of Chongqing Municipal Science and Technology Bureau and Chongqing Health Commission (2023CCXM003), the Natural Science Foundation Project of China (81820108015, 82101596, 82371526), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0505700), the Postdoctoral Research Foundation of China (2022MD723742, 2022MD723735), the Natural Science Foundation Project of Chongqing (cstc2022ycjh-bgzxm0033), Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2021QNRC001), and the Chongqing Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2022NSCQ-BHX1283).