Abstract
Some evidence suggests that bone health can be regulated by gut microbiota. To better understand this, we performed 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing to analyze the intestinal microbial diversity in primary osteoporosis (OP) patients, osteopenia (ON) patients and normal controls (NC). We observed an inverse correlation between the number of bacterial taxa and the value of bone mineral density. The diversity estimators in the OP and ON groups were increased compared with those in the NC group. Beta diversity analyses based on hierarchical clustering and principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) could discriminate the NC samples from OP and ON samples. Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria constituted the four dominant phyla in all samples. Proportion of Firmicutes was significantly higher and Bacteroidetes was significantly lower in OP samples than that in NC samples (p < 0.05), Gemmatimonadetes and Chloroflexi were significantly different between OP and NC group as well as between ON and NC group (p < 0.01). A total of 21 genera with proportions above 1% were detected and Bacteroides accounted for the largest proportion in all samples. The Blautia, Parabacteroides and Ruminococcaceae genera differed significantly between the OP and NC group (p < 0.05). Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) results showed one phylum community and seven phylum communities were enriched in ON and OP, respectively. Thirty-five genus communities, five genus communities and two genus communities were enriched in OP, ON and NC, respectively. The results of this study indicate that gut microbiota may be a critical factor in osteoporosis development, which can further help us search for novel biomarkers of gut microbiota in OP and understand the interaction between gut microbiota and bone health.
Highlights
Osteoporosis is a type of bone-thinning disorder, characterized by a reduction of bone mass, microarchitecture deterioration and an increased risk of fragility fractures
There were no significant differences in terms of age or gender, while bone mineral density (BMD), T -score and Z -score differed significantly among groups
Based on the sequencing data, the gut microbiota of all samples were classified to 507 Operational taxonomic units (OTUs), 367 species, 235 genera, 99 families, 63 orders, 38 classes, 25 phyla
Summary
Osteoporosis is a type of bone-thinning disorder, characterized by a reduction of bone mass, microarchitecture deterioration and an increased risk of fragility fractures. A better understanding of structure and function changes of microbes will help us search for novel biomarkers and understand the interaction between gut microbiota and bone mass disorder. Traditional methods for research on bacterial community inhabitants include isolation, cultivation, and optical microscopy These approaches are insufficient to obtain relatively full-scale and accurate results about the structure and diversity of microbiota communities in specific samples because the vast majority of bacteria in fecal samples are anaerobic and cannot be isolated in the laboratory (Perry et al, 2010). The present study was to explore the bacterial community structure and diversity changes of gut microbiota in patients with primary osteoporosis and primary osteopenia based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Results of our research will lay a foundation for searching novel microbe biomarkers and understanding the potential mechanisms of effects of gut microbiota on bone health
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