Change of intestinal microbiota in cerebral ischemic stroke patients

Gut microbiota has been suggested to play a role in stroke patients. Nevertheless, little is known about gut microbiota and the clinical indexes in stroke patients.

Total of 30 cerebral ischemic stroke (CI) patients and 30 healthy control were enrolled in this study and the fecal gut microbiota was profiled via Illumina sequencing of the 16S rRNA V1-V2. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) were used to quantify stroke severity and modified Rankin scale (mRS) to assess outcome for CI patients. The correlations between the clinical indexes and microbiota were evaluated.

Though the microbial α-diversity and structure is similar between CI patients and healthy controls, the gut microbiota of CI patients had more short chain fatty acids producer including Odoribacter, Akkermansia, Ruminococcaceae_UCG_005 and Victivallis. We also found that the special microbes were correlation with serum index, such as norank_O_ _Mollicutes_RF9, Enterobacter, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-002 were negative correlation with LDL (r = - 0.401, P < 0.01), HDL (r = - 0.425, P < 0.01) and blood glucose (r = - 0.439, P < 0.001), while the HDL was significantly positive correlation with the genus Ruminococcus_1 (r = 0.443, P < 0.001). The Christensenellaceae_R-7_group and norank_f_Ruminococcaceae was significantly positive correlation with NIHSS1M (r = 0.514, P < 0.05; r = 0.449, P < 0.05) and mRS (r = 0.471, P < 0.05, r = 0.503, P < 0.01), respectively. On the other hand, the genus Enterobacter was significantly negative correlation with NIHSS1M (r = 0.449, P < 0.05) and mRS (r = 0.503, P < 0.01).

This study suggests that CI patients showed significant dysbiosis of the gut microbiota with enriched short chain fatty acids producer, including Odoribacter, Akkermansia. This dysbiosis was correlation with the outcomes and deserves further study.