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. 2020 Nov;32(11):e13891.
doi: 10.1111/nmo.13891. Epub 2020 May 25.

Gut fungal dysbiosis and altered bacterial-fungal interaction in patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome: An explorative study

Gaichao Hong  1 , Ying Li  1 , Min Yang  1 , Gangping Li  1 , Wei Qian  1 , Hanhua Xiong  1 , Tao Bai  1 , Jun Song  1 , Lei Zhang  1 , Xiaohua Hou  1
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Gut fungal dysbiosis and altered bacterial-fungal interaction in patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome: An explorative study

Gaichao Hong et al. Neurogastroenterol Motil. 2020 Nov.

Abstract

Background: Little is known about intestinal fungi in IBS patients whose gut bacteria have been investigated a lot. In order to explore causal relationship between IBS and gut mycobiome, and use gut fungi to diagnose or even treat IBS, further characterization of it in IBS is required.

Methods: Fifty-five diarrhea-predominant IBS (D-IBS) patients fulfilling Rome III criteria, and 16 healthy controls (HC) were recruited. Fresh fecal samples were collected and used for 16s rRNA and ITS2 high-throughput sequencing. Diversity and composition of gut bacteria and fungi, as well as bacterial-fungal interactions in D-IBS patients, were characterized. Specific fungal taxa differentiating D-IBS from HC were recognized by LEfSe and RandomForest methods, and their association with clinical symptoms was assessed by Spearman's correlation.

Results: Diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome patients showed abnormal (IBS-dysbiosis) or normal (HC-like IBS) fecal bacterial structure and diversity compared with healthy controls. However, fecal fungal signatures differed absolutely between D-IBS and HC, which indicated a more susceptible alteration of gut fungi than bacteria in D-IBS. Fecal fungi showed significant correlations with IBS symptoms, especially Mycosphaerella, Aspergillus, Sporidiobolus, and Pandora which were identified to potentially differentiate D-IBS from HC. Moreover, compared with HC there were markedly declined bacterial-fungal interactions in D-IBS, in which Candida changed from negative to positive correlations with bacteria, and Eurotium changed from positive correlations to irrelevance, while Debaryomyces gained negative correlations with bacteria.

Conclusions: Gut fungal dysbiosis and altered bacterial-fungal interactions were present in patients with D-IBS, and gut fungi could be used to diagnose D-IBS.

Keywords: bacterial-fungal interaction; diarrhea; fungal dysbiosis; irritable bowel syndrome.

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