Published online Sep 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i35.5188
Peer-review started: April 12, 2022
First decision: July 13, 2022
Revised: July 26, 2022
Accepted: August 22, 2022
Article in press: August 22, 2022
Published online: September 21, 2022
The microbes and metabolomics of microbiota dysbiosis in the gut in the different phases of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are not fully understood.
To investigate the specific gut microbiota and metabolites of the immune-tolerant (IT) and immune-active (IA) phases of chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
Clinical fecal samples from healthy individuals and patients in the IT and IA phases of HBV infection were collected. Next, non-target metabolomics, bioinfor
A total of 293 different metabolites in 14 phyla, 22 classes, 29 orders, 51 families, and 190 genera were identified. The four phyla of Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, and Proteobacteria were the most abundant, accounting for 99.72%, 99.79%, and 99.55% in the healthy controls, IT-phase patients, and IA-phase patients, respectively. We further identified 16 genera with different richness in the IT phase and IA phase of HBV infection. Of the 134 named metabolites, 57 were upregulated and 77 were downregulated. A total of 101 different metabolic functions were predicted in this study, with 6 metabolic pathways having the highest enrichments, namely carbohydrate metabolism (14.85%), amino acid metabolism (12.87%), lipid metabolism (11.88%), metabolism of cofactors and vitamins (11.88%), xenobiotic biodegradation (9.9%), and metabolism of terpenoids and polyketides (7.92%).
These findings provide observational evidence of compositional alterations of the gut microbiome and some related metabolites in patients with IT-phase or IA-phase HBV infection. Further studies should investigate whether microbiota modulation can facilitate the progression of CHB and the cause-effect relationship between the gut microbiota and CHB.
Core Tip: This article provided observational evidence of compositional alterations of gut microbiome and some related metabolite in patients with immune-tolerant phase hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and immune-active phase HBV infection.