Implication of the gut microbiome composition of type 2 diabetic patients from northern China

Emerging evidence has suggested the association of the gut microbiome with some human diseases, including type 2 diabetes (T2D). In this study, we analyzed the gut microbiota from a cohort of healthy and diabetic Chinese individuals from Northern China. Pyrosequencing of the V4V5 region of 16S rRNA genes revealed a significant decrease in the gut microbiota diversity of diabetic patients as compared to healthy individuals. Butyrate-producing bacteria such as Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia were significantly decreased in diabetic patients. Furthermore, the abundance of Dorea was significantly increased in T2D individuals and negatively correlated with the abundance of butyrate-producing bacteria. The increase of Dorea could play a role in the development of T2D and has been previously overlooked. Importantly, functional analysis of the gut microbiome revealed for the first time that increased levels of butyrate production via transferases and the degradation of several amino acids due to gut microbial metabolism have strong correlations with T2D in Northern China. Moreover, the potential of gut microbiota-based classifiers to identify individuals with a high risk for T2D has been demonstrated in this study. Taken together, our findings have revealed a previously unappreciated association of the gut microbiome with T2D and have also suggested that changes in gut microbiota may be used to identify individuals at high risk for T2D.