Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a growing disorder with unknown etiology. However, increasing evidence strongly highlights the role of gut microbiota with possible involvement of microbial plasmidome in the inflammatory process. Although the composition of the gut microbiota has been extensively studied, important functional groups such as butyrate producers remain poorly characterized, particularly in pediatric IBD. Furthermore, evaluation of the gut plasmidome in healthy and IBD children is missing. In this study, we used molecular techniques involving quantitative PCR (qPCR) and next-generation sequencing of functional and 16S rRNA genes to analyze the level and composition of butyrate-producing microbes in mucosal washes collected from the right colon of healthy children and Crohn's disease (CD) patients during diagnostic colonoscopy. Also, we isolated and characterized the gut plasmidome from the right colon mucosal washes collected from pediatric non-IBD control, ulcerative colitis (UC), and CD subjects. Although no difference was observed in the total amount of butyrate producers that utilize the butyrate kinase (BUK) pathway for butyrate synthesis, butyrate producers that use the butyryl CoA:acetate CoA-transferase (BCoAT) pathway were decreased in CD patients with inflamed colon as compared to controls. This functional gene approach shows that pediatric CD is characterized by generalized decreased abundance of Eubacterium rectale and increased abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii in patients with inflamed colon. Also, phylogenetic analysis highlighted 15 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) as potential novel butyrate producers, five of which were decreased in CD patients. Using 16S rRNA sequencing approach validated the functional gene results and showed decreased abundance of Coprococcus in CD patients with inflamed colon. Furthermore, non-IBD plasmidome has higher level of genes involved in butyrate synthesis and regulation of different cellular processes and stress response. On the other hand, IBD plasmidome is enriched with antibiotic resistance genes and phage elements, and pediatric CD plasmidome in particular has higher abundance of the adenosine-5'-phosphosulfate reductase gene. Altogether, our study represents the first comprehensive description of gut butyrate producers and plasmidome of pediatric subjects that emphasize a characteristic dysbiosis of butyrate producers in pediatric CD and a potential link between the gut plasmidome and IBD pathogenesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/34271 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Abujamel, Turki |
| Contributors | Stintzi, Alain |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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