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. 2022 Mar 15:12:831186.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.831186. eCollection 2022.

Gut Microbiota-Related Inflammation Factors as a Potential Biomarker for Diagnosing Major Depressive Disorder

Shunjie Bai  1 , Huili Bai  2 , Detao Li  1 , Qi Zhong  3 , Jing Xie  4 , Jian-Jun Chen  3
Affiliations

Gut Microbiota-Related Inflammation Factors as a Potential Biomarker for Diagnosing Major Depressive Disorder

Shunjie Bai et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

Objective: Although many works have been done, the objectively measured diagnostic biomarkers are not available. Thus, we conducted this study to identify potential biomarkers for objectively diagnosing depression and explore the role of gut microbiota in the onset of depression.

Methods: Major depressive disorder (MDD) patients (n=56) and demographic data-matched healthy controls (HCs) (n=56) were included in this study. The gut microbiota in fecal samples and inflammation-related factors in serum were measured. Both univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed to identify the differential gut microbiota and inflammation-related factors.

Results: Finally, 46 differential operational taxonomic units (OTUs) (60.9% OTUs belonging to Firmicutes) and ten differential inflammation-related factors were identified. Correlation analysis showed that there were significant correlations between 14 differential OTUs (9 OTUs belonging to Firmicutes and 5 OTUs belonging to family Lachnospiraceae under Firmicutes) and seven differential inflammation-related factors. Meanwhile, 14 differential OTUs (9 OTUs belonging to Firmicutes and 5 OTUs belonging to family Lachnospiraceae under Firmicutes) and five differential inflammation-related factors (adiponectin, apolipoprotein A1, alpha 1-antitrypsin, neutrophilicgranulocyte count/white blood cell count and basophil count) were significantly correlated to depression severity. A panel consisting of these five differential inflammation-related factors could effectively diagnose MDD patients from HCs.

Conclusions: Our results suggested that Firmicutes, especially family Lachnospiraceae, might play a role in the onset of depression via affecting the inflammation levels of host, and these five differential inflammation-related factors could be potential biomarkers for objectively diagnosing MDD.

Keywords: Firmicutes; Lachnospiraceae; gut microbiota; inflammation; major depressive disorder.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Gut microbiota compositions in MDD patients and HCs. (A) No significant differences on within-sample (α) phylogenetic diversity between MDD patients and HCs were identified; (B) β-diversity analysis showed that there were significant differences on gut microbiota compositions between the two groups; (C) the relative abundances of gut microbiota at phylum level in both groups. MDD, major depressive disorder; HCs, healthy controls.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Heat-map consisting of differential OTUs between the two groups. The heat-map was built with the z-score of the relative abundance of OTUs. The redder represents the higher the abundance, and the greener represents the lower abundance. MDD, major depressive disorder; HCs, healthy controls; OTUs, operational taxonomic units.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Differential inflammation-related factors in MDD patients. The number on each circle represents the levels of inflammation-related factors. The each cross-point of blue/green line and semidiameter line represents the levels of inflammation-related factors in one sample from MDD/HCs group. MDD, major depressive disorder; HCs, healthy controls.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Correlations between differential OTUs and differential inflammation-related factors. Most of differential OTUs significantly related to differential inflammation-related factors belonged to Firmicutes.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Depression severity-related differential OTUs and differential inflammation-related factors. Five depression severity-related differential inflammation factors were identified, and most of depression severity-related differential OTUs belonged to Firmicutes.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Diagnostic performances of the identified potential biomarkers. (A) samples in training set were used to identify the potential biomarkers, and the AUC value showed that these biomarkers could effectively diagnose MDD; (B) samples in testing set were used to assess the diagnostic performance of these biomarkers, and the AUC value showed that these biomarkers could effectively diagnose independent MDD patients. AUC, area under the curve; CI, confidence interval.
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