Abstract
BackgroundInter-individual variations in gut microbiota composition are observed even among healthy populations. The gut microbiota may exhibit a unique composition depending on the country of origin and race of individuals. To comprehensively understand the link between healthy gut microbiota and host state, it is beneficial to conduct large-scale cohort studies. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the integrated and non-redundant factors associated with gut microbiota composition within the Japanese population by 16S rRNA sequencing of fecal samples and questionnaire-based covariate analysis.ResultsA total of 1596 healthy Japanese individuals participated in this study via two independent cohorts, NIBIOHN cohort (n = 954) and MORINAGA cohort (n = 642). Gut microbiota composition was described and the interaction of these microorganisms with metadata parameters such as anthropometric measurements, bowel habits, medical history, and lifestyle were obtained. Thirteen genera, including Alistipes, Anaerostipes, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Blautia, Eubacterium halli group, Faecalibacterium, Fusicatenibacter, Lachnoclostridium, Parabacteroides, Prevotella_9, Roseburia, and Subdoligranulum were predominant among the two cohorts. On the basis of univariate analysis for overall microbiome variation, 18 matching variables exhibited significant association in both cohorts. A stepwise redundancy analysis revealed that there were four common covariates, Bristol Stool Scale (BSS) scores, gender, age, and defecation frequency, displaying non-redundant association with gut microbial variance.ConclusionsWe conducted a comprehensive analysis of gut microbiota in healthy Japanese individuals, based on two independent cohorts, and obtained reliable evidence that questionnaire-based covariates such as frequency of bowel movement and specific dietary habit affects the microbial composition of the gut. To our knowledge, this was the first study to investigate integrated and non-redundant factors associated with gut microbiota among Japanese populations.
Highlights
Inter-individual variations in gut microbiota composition are observed even among healthy populations
We conducted a comprehensive analysis of gut microbiota in healthy Japanese individuals, based on two independent cohorts, and obtained reliable evidence that questionnaire-based covariates such as frequency of bowel movement and specific dietary habit affects the microbial composition of the gut
Distribution of gut bacterial community in healthy individuals of two independent cohorts First, we described the gut bacterial community structure of two large-scale healthy Japanese cohorts based on genuslevel Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and enterotype analysis by partitioning around medoids (PAM) clustering using Jensen-Shannon divergence (JSD) (Fig. 1a and Fig. S2a, b)
Summary
Inter-individual variations in gut microbiota composition are observed even among healthy populations. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the integrated and non-redundant factors associated with gut microbiota composition within the Japanese population by 16S rRNA sequencing of fecal samples and questionnaire-based covariate analysis. Certain patterns and transitions in the gut microbiota composition are observed with age [8] and altered dietary intake [21,22,23]. Intestinal transit time, which is measured directly or assessed using Bristol Stool Scale (BSS) scores [24], is a factor influencing the composition and diversity of gut microbiota [25, 26]. The association between intestinal transit time and gut microbiota is complicated and interactive [27, 28], and studies involving the analysis of transit time as one of the investigating factors will help us to improve our understanding of the gut microbiome
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