Alterations of the Gut Microbiota in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 or H1N1 Influenza.

Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2020 Dec 17

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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an emerging serious global health problem. Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in COVID-19 patients, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA has been detected in stool specimens. However, the relationship between the gut microbiome and disease remains to be established. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 30 patients with COVID-19, 24 patients with influenza A(H1N1), and 30 matched healthy controls (HCs) to identify differences in the gut microbiota by 16S ribosomal RNA gene V3-V4 region sequencing. Compared with HCs, COVID-19 patients had significantly reduced bacterial diversity; a significantly higher relative abundance of opportunistic pathogens, such as Streptococcus, Rothia, Veillonella, and Actinomyces; and a lower relative abundance of beneficial symbionts. Five biomarkers showed high accuracy for distinguishing COVID-19 patients from HCs with an area under the curve (AUC) up to 0.89. Patients with H1N1 displayed lower diversity and different overall microbial composition compared with COVID-19 patients. Seven biomarkers were selected to distinguish the 2 cohorts (AUC = 0.94). The gut microbial signature of patients with COVID-19 was different from that of H1N1 patients and HCs. Our study suggests the potential value of the gut microbiota as a diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for COVID-19, but further validation is needed. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Citation

Silan Gu, Yanfei Chen, Zhengjie Wu, Yunbo Chen, Hainv Gao, Longxian Lv, Feifei Guo, Xuewu Zhang, Rui Luo, Chenjie Huang, Haifeng Lu, Beiwen Zheng, Jiaying Zhang, Ren Yan, Hua Zhang, Huiyong Jiang, Qiaomai Xu, Jing Guo, Yiwen Gong, Lingling Tang, Lanjuan Li. Alterations of the Gut Microbiota in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 or H1N1 Influenza. Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 2020 Dec 17;71(10):2669-2678