Analysis of microbiota in elderly patients with Acute Cerebral Infarction

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Recent evidence suggest that microbiota is associated with almost all major types of diseases, including cardiovascular diseases. However, its role in Acute Cerebral Infarction remains unexplored. It is important to understand the diversity and distribution of gut microbiota (GM) in patients with Acute Cerebral Infarction and the role that GM plays in this type of disease. METHODS: We performed pyrosequencing on the gut microbiota of 40 individuals in order to elucidate whether the composition of the microbiota differs between patients with Acute Cerebral Infarction and healthy controls: Of these individuals, there were 31 with Acute Cerebral Infarction and nine controls. We applied linear regression to calculate the correlation between the gut flora and disease risk factors. Finally, KEGG functional enrichment analysis was conducted to examine the correlation between the gut flora and Acute Cerebral Infarction. RESULTS: The overall microbial structure was similar in both the controls and the patients, but the control group had higher relative presence of Blautia obeum while the presence of Streptococcus infantis and Prevotella copri were relatively higher in the patient group. Using linear regression, we found that Blautia obeum was negatively associated with white blood cell count and Streptococcus infantis was positively correlated with creatinine and lipoprotein. The KEGG pathway analysis indicated that the bio-pathways including methane metabolism, lipopolysaccharide synthesis, bacterial secretion, and flagellar assembly of the gut microbiota in the patient group was expressed differently than that of the controls. We identified three differentially expressed gut microbial functions in Acute Cerebral Infarction and found four bacterial pathways that might be related to the development of this disease. CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified three abnormally-expressed bacteria—Blautia obeum, Streptococcus infantis, and Prevotella copri—in patients with Acute Cerebral Infarction compared with healthy controls. It reveals a correlation of these bacterial species with Acute Cerebral Infarction as they relate to disease factors and functional pathways. These findings may shed light on the treatment of cerebral infarction because gut microbiota could serve as a potential therapeutic approach for the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.