Quantitative Analysis of Intestinal Flora of Uygur and Han Ethnic Chinese Patients with Ulcerative Colitis

Abstract

Aim. To study the correlation between intestinal flora and ulcerative colitis by analyzing the abundance of Bacteroides, Fusobacterium, Clostridium, Bifidobacterium spp., and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii in the intestinal of ulcerative colitis (UC) patients and healthy controls with Uygur and Han ethnic. Methods. Bacterial genomic DNA was extracted from fecal samples and analyzed with real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify the abundance of Bacteroides, Fusobacterium, Clostridium, Bifidobacterium spp., and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii. Results. The samples from UC patients, Uygur and Han ethnic combined, had higher abundance of Bacteroides (P = 0.026) but lower Clostridium (P = 0.004), Bifidobacterium spp. (P = 0.009), and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (P = 0.008) than those from healthy controls. Among UC patients, Bacteroides population was raised in acute UC patients (P ≤ 0.05), while the abundance of Clostridium, Bifidobacterium spp., Fusobacterium, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii decreased (P ≤ 0.05) compared with the remission. In both UC patients group and control group, no difference was observed in the abundance of these 5 bacteria between the Han and the Uygur group. Conclusions. Variations in the abundance of these five bacterial strains in intestines may be associated with the occurrence of UC in Uygur and Han populations; however, these variations were not associated with ethnic difference.

Figure 1

Electrophoretic gel image of five kinds of bacteria.

Figure 2

(a) Quantitative analysis of copy numbers of Bacteroides in the 4 groups: A, Han-UC group; B, Han-control group; C, Uygur-UC group; D, Uygur-control group. UC, ulcerative colitis. (b) Quantitative analysis of copy numbers of Fusobacterium in the 4 groups: A, Han-UC group; B, Han-control group; C, Uygur-UC group; D, Uygur-control group. UC, ulcerative colitis. (c) Quantitative analysis of copy numbers of Clostridium prausnitzii in the 4 groups: A, Han-UC group; B, Han-control group; C, Uygur-UC group; D, Uygur-control group. UC, ulcerative colitis. (d) Quantitative analysis of copy numbers of Bifidobacterium spp. in the 4 groups: A, Han-UC group; B, Han-control group; C, Uygur-UC group; D, Uygur-control group. UC, ulcerative colitis. (e) Quantitative analysis of copy numbers of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii in the 4 groups: A, Han-UC group; B, Han-control group; C, Uygur-UC group; D, Uygur-control group. UC, ulcerative colitis.