Comparison of gut microbiota between adults with autism spectrum disorder and obese adults

Abstract

Background Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and obesity are serious global public health problems. Studies have shown that ASD children are at a higher risk of obesity than the general population. To investigate the gut microbe characteristics of adults ASD and obese adults, we compared the gut microbiota of adults with ASD to obese adults. Methods The fecal samples were collected from 21 adult patients with ASD and 21 obese adults, and V3–V4 regions of 16S rRNA genes were sequenced by high-throughput DNA sequencing. The gut microbiota of adults with ASD and obese adults was compared. Results We observed the proportion of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes in ASD was significantly increased, with families Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae significantly enriched in adult ASD. Eighteen genera, including Lachnospiracea incertae sedis, Ruminococcus, Blautia, and Holdemanella were significantly increased in adult ASD, whereas Megamonas and Fusobacterium were significantly increased in obesity. At the species level, we found six species enriched in ASD and three species enriched in obesity, including Phascolarctobacterium succinatuten producing propionate. Dialister succinatiphilus may be as a biomarker for predicting obesity, as well as Prevotella copri may be a common-owned pathogens of ASD and obesity. Conclusions Some conflicting results have been reported in microbiota studies of ASD, which may be related to age and obesity. Thus, the body mass index should be evaluated before analyzing the gut microbiota of patients with ASD, as obesity is prevalent in these individuals and gut microbiota is severally affected by obesity.

Obesity influences composition of salivary and fecal microbiota and impacts the interactions between bacterial taxa

“…Agathobacter and Parabacteroides were shown to be associated with metabolic disorders in humans and a murine model (Del Chierico et al, 2017;Liu et al, 2016;Salah et al, 2019;Schroeder et al, 2020). Similar to what we observed in the saliva samples, several less abundant bacterial taxa that were previously associated with obesity, including Mitsuokella and Neisseria, at the genus rank and Fusobacteriaceae and Gemellaceae, at the family rank, produced more impact on the separation of obese and lean categories than dominant bacterial taxa (Moreno-Indias et al, 2016;Palmas et al, 2021;Peters et al, 2018;Uberos et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2021). Proportionally to all identified taxa, more organisms were significantly different in abundance between lean and obese groups in saliva samples, when compared with fecal samples, which might suggest that sampling oral microbiota may be more informative in identifying microbial biomarkers of obesity.…”

Obesity influences composition of salivary and fecal microbiota and impacts the interactions between bacterial taxa

“…Agathobacter and Parabacteroides were shown to be associated with metabolic disorders in humans and a murine model [85][86][87][88]. Similar to what we observed in the saliva samples, several less abundant bacterial taxa that were previously associated with obesity, including Mitsuokella and Neisseria, at the genus rank and Fusobacteriaceae and Gemellaceae, at the family rank, produced more impact on separation of obese and lean categories than dominant bacterial taxa [73,[89][90][91][92]. Proportionally to all identified taxa, more organisms were significantly different in abundance between lean and obese groups in saliva samples, when compared with fecal samples, which might suggest that sampling oral microbiota may be more informative in identifying microbial biomarkers of obesity.…”

Gut Microbiome Alterations in Patients With Visceral Obesity Based on Quantitative Computed Tomography

“…Escherichia coli and Ruminococcus gnavus were enriched in the H-VFA group and were positively correlated with metabolic indicators, the WBC, and the NEC. Additionally, studies showed that Dialister succinatiphilus was increased in obese subjects and could be used as a biomarker for predicting obesity ( Zhang et al., 2021 ). This is consistent with our results that Dialister succinatiphilus was increased in the H-VFA group.…”

“…The ECASYN-PWY, PWY0-1338, KDO-NAGLIPASYN-PWY, and PWY-6467 pathways were enriched in the H-VFA group; they were involved in the production of the lipopolysaccharide and positively correlated with the WBC and the NEC. Previous studies (Zhang et al, 2021) mentioned that lipopolysaccharide remains at low concentrations in healthy people but may reach high concentrations in obese individuals. I t l e a d s t o m e t a b o l ic e n d o t o x e m i a .…”