Active Smoking Induces Aberrations in Digestive Tract Microbiota of Rats.

Xiang Wang,Sheng Ge,Fan Huang,Qingang Hu,Weiwei Heng,Peter J Polverini,Lichun Zheng,Pei Ye,Wenmei Wang,Li Fang,Fuhua Yan

doi:10.3389/fcimb.2021.737204

Xiang Wang, Sheng Ge + Show 9 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2021.737204

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Abstract

Cigarette smoking could have certain effects on gut microbiota. Some pioneering studies have investigated effects of active smoking on the microbiome in local segments of the digestive tract, while active smoking-induced microbiome alterations in the whole digestive tract have not been fully investigated. Here, we developed a rat model of active smoking and characterized the effects of active smoking on the microbiota within multiple regions along the digestive tract. Blood glucose and some metabolic factors levels, the microbial diversity and composition, relative abundances of taxa, bacterial network correlations and predictive functional profiles were compared between the control group and active smoking group. We found that active smoking induced hyperglycemia and significant reductions in serum insulin and leptin levels. Active smoking induced region-specific shifts in microbiota structure, composition, network correlation and metabolism function along the digestive tract. Our results demonstrated that active smoking resulted in a reduced abundance of some potentially beneficial genera (i.e. Clostridium, Turicibacter) and increased abundance of potentially harmful genera (i.e. Desulfovibrio, Bilophila). Functional prediction suggested that amino acid, lipid, propanoate metabolism function could be impaired and antioxidant activity may be triggered. Active smoking may be an overlooked risk to health through its potential effects on the digestive tract microbiota, which is involved in the cause and severity of an array of chronic diseases.

Highlights

Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of disease burden worldwide
Our results showed that rats in the active smoking group gained less weight compared with rats in the control group (p < 0.01) (Supplementary Figure S1)
The serum glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (GHbA1c), adiponectin and ghrelin levels were not significantly altered in the active smoking group compared with the control group (p > 0.05) (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of disease burden worldwide. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of oral leukoplakia, oral cancer, periodontitis, gastric ulcer, atrophic gastritis, gastric cancer, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, etc.A large variety of symbiotic microorganisms inhabit the digestive tract and constitute a complex microecosystem, and microbiotas along the digestive tract play a critical role in maintaining host physiological homeostasis (Li et al, 2017; Sedano-Nunez et al, 2018). Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of disease burden worldwide. At the phylum level, smoking reduced the relative abundance of Firmicutes (Lee et al, 2018; Sublette et al, 2020; Yang et al, 2021) and Bacteroidetes (Stewart et al, 2018), while enhanced that of Cyanobacteria Sublette et al, 2020; Li et al, 2021c; Yang et al, 2021), Tenericutes (Huang and Shi, 2019), and TM7 (Moon et al, 2015). Desulfovibrio (Kato et al, 2010), Paraprevotella (Zhang et al, 2020), Staphylococcus (Kelley et al, 2021), Corynebacterium (Moon et al, 2015; Kelley et al, 2021), and Xanthomonas (Huang and Shi, 2019) were enriched in smoking individuals, while Clostridium (Wang et al, 2021), Lactococcus (Huang and Shi, 2019), Morganella (Huang and Shi, 2019) were depleted in smoking individuals

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