Characteristics of Intestinal Flora in Pregnant Women with Mild Thalassemia Revealed by Metagenomics

Abstract

Background: At present, there is no report that the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia is different from that of healthy pregnant women. Objectives: This study compared the composition and changes of the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia to those of healthy pregnant women using metagenomic sequencing technology and evaluated the potential microecological risk for pregnant women and the fetus. Methods: The present study was carried out on 14 mild thalassemia pregnant women with similar backgrounds in the Affiliated Hospital of Putian University, Fujian, China. In the same period, 6 healthy pregnant women were selected as the control group. The genomic deoxyribonucleic acid was extracted from the sable stool samples of pregnant women. Illumina HiSeq sequencing technology was adopted after library preparation. Prodigal software (ver 2.6.3), Salmon software (ver 1.6.0), and Kraken software (ver 2) were used to analyze the sequence data. Moreover, analysis of variance and Duncan’s multiple-comparison test or Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used as statistical methods. Results: The characteristics of the intestinal flora of pregnant women with mild thalassemia differed significantly from those of healthy pregnant women, showing an increase in some conditionally pathogenic bacteria (e.g., Prevotella stercorea rose and Escherichia coli) and a decrease in some probiotic bacteria, which might affect pregnant women and cause physiological function damage to their offspring by changing metabolic pathways; however, further validation is needed. Conclusions: The diversity and composition of intestinal flora in pregnant women with mild thalassemia vary significantly from those in healthy pregnant women, especially at the genus and species levels, representing more profound alterations in intestinal microecology.