A case-control study on the abundance, species and gene functional pathway of gut microbiota in patients with depression

Abstract

Objective To investigate the abundance, species and functional pathway of gut microbiota of patients with depression. Methods Shotgun metagenome sequencing was performed on the gut microbiota of 18 patients with depression and 24 normal controls. Results The abundance of the gut microbiota were not significantly different between the depressed patients and controls (t=0.33, P=0.74), but there were significantly different in some species between two groups(t=-4.37, P<0.01). The first six bacteria which were acidaminococcus, acidaminococcus fermentans, acidaminoccus fermentans DSM20731, clostridium saccharolyticum WM1, ruminococcaceae and heliobacterium modesticaldum in depression group were more than those in the control group (F=19.50, 15.50, 26.46, 26.72, 13.57, 14.59, all P<0.01). The first three bacteria which were capnocytophaga, saccharomonospora viridis and helicobacter felis ATCC_49179 in depression group were less than those in the control group (F=19.95, 12.66, 69.52, all P<0.01) . The functional pathway of the genes of microbiota were also significantly different between two groups (all P<0.01). The first two pathways which were synthesis of pantothenate and coenzyme A, tryptophan metabolism in depressed patients were more than controls (F=12.94, 10.46), while the P53 signal pathway in depressed patients was obviously less than controls (F=13.35). Conclusion These findings enable a better understanding of changes in the fecal microbiota composition in depression patients. The disturbance of pathways of pantothenate and coenzyme A biosynthesis, tryptophan metabolism and P53 signaling pathway could also influence microbiota composition in depression patients. Key words: Depression; Gut microbiota; Metagenome study; Shotgun sequencing