Bacterial Diversity of Intestinal Microbiota in Patients with Substance Use Disorders Revealed by 16S rRNA Gene Deep Sequencing

Yu Xu,Yunhong Gao,Zongwen Shen,Qiang Wu,Zhenrong Xie,Huawei Wang,Kunhua Wang,Xin Chen,Youbing Guo,Xuejun Li

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03706-9

Abstract

Substance abuse and addiction are worldwide concerns. In China, populated with over 1.3 billion people, emerging studies show a steady increase in substance abuse and substance-related problems. Some of the major challenges include a lack of an effective evaluation platform to determine the health status of substance-addicted subjects. It is known that the intestinal microbiota is associated to the occurrence and development of human diseases. However, the changes of bacterial diversity of intestinal microbiota in substance-addicted subjects have not been clearly characterized. Herein, we examined the composition and diversity of intestinal microbiota in 45 patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) and in 48 healthy controls (HCs). The results show that the observed species diversity index and the abundance of Thauera, Paracoccus, and Prevotella are significantly higher in SUDs compared to HCs. The functional diversity of the putative metagenomes analysis reveals that pathways including translation, DNA replication and repair, and cell growth and death are over-represented while cellular processes and signaling, and metabolism are under-represented in SUDs. Overall, the analyses show that there seem to be changes in the microbiota that are associated with substance use across an array of SUDs, providing fundamental knowledge for future research in substance-addiction assessment tests.

Highlights

Gender Age at collection Mean ± SD Range Substance_Time Mean ± SD Range Substance_Type Heroin Methamphetamine Ephedrine Others Substance_Manner Snorting Injection Re-addiction Times 1st time 2nd time More than twice
We examined the composition and the dynamics of the intestinal microbiota of 45 patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) and 48 healthy controls (HCs) in order to determine whether there is an association between substance abuses and/or the length of substance addiction with the changes of intestinal microbiota
We performed a principle component analysis (PCA) to distinguish the differences among subjects addicted to different groups of substances, including 45 SUDs and 48 HCs (Supplementary Figure S1)

Summary

Introduction

Gender Age at collection Mean ± SD Range Substance_Time (month) Mean ± SD Range Substance_Type Heroin Methamphetamine Ephedrine Others Substance_Manner Snorting Injection Re-addiction Times 1st time 2nd time More than twice. Low community richness has been correlated with metabolic disorders (i.e. adiposity, insulin resistance, and overall inflammatory phenotypes) and gastrointestinal conditions (i.e. inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, and irritable bowel syndrome)[9] Various external variables such as stress, probiotic or antibiotic use, and alcohol consumption have been found to instigate changes in the human microbiota[10, 11]. We examined the composition and the dynamics of the intestinal microbiota of 45 patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) and 48 healthy controls (HCs) in order to determine whether there is an association between substance abuses and/or the length of substance addiction with the changes of intestinal microbiota.

Methods

Results

Conclusion