Background
It is common knowledge that people’s intestinal microbiota is significantly influenced by the external environment. Although the Antarctic continent has been discovered for nearly 200 years, it is still unclear how this environment affects the human intestinal microbiota, especially that of the Chinese Han population.
Methods
Twelve explorers underwent a one-year Antarctic deployment from December 2017 to December 2018. The gut microbiota and clinical indexes at five time points, including two months (T1), five months (T2), eight months (T3), 11 months (T4) of residence in Antarctica and 7 months after returning to China (T5), were investigated.
Results
The intestinal microbiota of the participants was changed after one-year Antarctic deployment even after they left Antarctica. For the microbiota tested after returning to China (T5), the amount of
Citrobacter
,
Akkermansia
and conditional pathogens such as
Escherichia-Shigella
increased significantly (
P
< 0.05). The concentration of the major biochemical indicators in the serum exhibited an increasing trend before T3, and decreased significantly at T4. When tested again at T5, most of the serum concentrations increased, only 5-hydroxytryptamine was significantly decreased. Spearman correlation analysis showed the change in the relative abundance of
Anaerotruncus
was negatively associated with the changes in the concentration of total thyroxine, alanine transaminase, γ-glutamyl transpeptidase, serum cystatin C and apolipoprotein A1. The relative abundance change in
Citrobacter
was positively associated with the change in the concentration of uric acid.
Conclusion
By objectively analyzing the influence of the Antarctic environment on the change of intestinal microbiota, we were able to provide theoretical support for subsequent Antarctic related research.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12866-024-03569-x.
