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. 2025 Jan;28(1):173-186.
doi: 10.1007/s10123-024-00531-9. Epub 2024 May 17.

Characterizations of gut bacteriome, mycobiome, and virome of healthy individuals living in sea-level and high-altitude areas

Zhen Xiao #  1   2 , Yue Zhang #  3 , Wei Zhang  4 , Aiqin Zhang  4 , Guangyang Wang  4 , Changming Chen  5 , Hayan Ullah  4 , Taj Ayaz  4 , Shenghui Li  3 , Duoji Zhaxi  1 , Qiulong Yan  6 , Jian Kang  7 , Xiaoguang Xu  8   9
Affiliations

Characterizations of gut bacteriome, mycobiome, and virome of healthy individuals living in sea-level and high-altitude areas

Zhen Xiao et al. Int Microbiol. 2025 Jan.

Abstract

Background: The contribution of gut microbiota to human high-altitude adaptation remains inadequately understood.

Methods: Here a comparative analysis of gut microbiota was conducted between healthy individuals living at sea level and high altitude using deep whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing, to investigate the adaptive mechanisms of gut microbiota in plateau inhabitants.

Results: The results showed the gut bacteriomes in high-altitude individuals exhibited greater within-sample diversity and significant alterations in both bacterial compositional and functional profiles when compared to those of sea-level individuals, indicating the potential selection of unique bacteria associated with high-altitude environments. The strain-level investigation revealed enrichment of Collinsella aerofaciens and Akkermansia muciniphila in high-altitude populations. The characteristics of gut virome and gut mycobiome were also investigated. Compared to sea-level subjects, high-altitude subjects exhibited a greater diversity in their gut virome, with an increased number of viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs) and unique annotated genes. Finally, correlation analyses revealed 819 significant correlations between 42 bacterial species and 375 vOTUs, while no significant correlations were observed between bacteria and fungi or between fungi and viruses.

Conclusion: The findings have significantly contributed to an enhanced comprehension of the mechanisms underlying the high-altitude geographic adaptation of the human gut microbiota.

Keywords: Bacteriome; Gut microbiome; High-altitude adaption; Mycobiome; Virome; Whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of People’s Hospital of Naqu (Tibet) and the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University (Liaoning). Competing Interests: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

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