BackgroundChalazion is a chronic inflammatory granuloma of the meibomian gland formed on the basis of the obstruction of the meibomian gland drainage duct and the retention of secretions. It is one of the most common clinically eye diseases in children. Chronic inflammation of the meibomian glands is responsible for this disease, and the gut flora is thought to be involved in the inflammatory process. In this study, we investigated the relationship between intestinal microbial composition and children's chalazion.MethodsFecal samples were collected from 21 children with chalazion and 26 healthy children. DNA was extracted from fecal stool samples and 16S rRNA sequences in the gut flora were detected by using second second-generation sequencing technology. The results were used to compare the composition of the microbiome between patients and healthy controls.ResultsAccording to Alpha Diversity and Beta Diversity analysis, we found that there was no significant difference in bacteria diversity and relative abundance between the two groups. We compared the flora of the control group and the diseased group through Lefse analysis, and screened out 11 different species. Based on the absolute abundance of species, 43 different species were selected. Anosim analysis and metastats analysis were used to compare the flora of the control group and the diseased group again. At the species level, we found that gut_metagenome and human_gut_metagenome are the common differences in species levels obtained from the above analysis. Finally, corrplot correlation analysis was performed, suggesting that gut_metagenome has a great correlation with the number, ulceration, and recurrence of chalazion in children.ConclusionsThere was no significant difference in the diversity index and relative abundance of flora in children with chalazion compared with healthy children, but there were significant differences in some bacterial species. The gut_metagenome strains identified in this study were significantly related to the growth, ulceration, and relapse of children with chalazion. It is suggested that gut_metagenome may be a microbiological indicator which is independent of clinicopathologic factors but associated with chalazion disease .* These authors have contributed equally to this work.