Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 14, 2020; 26(6): 614-626
Published online Feb 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i6.614
Characterizing the composition of intestinal microflora by 16S rRNA gene sequencing
Wen-Jia Wang, You-Lian Zhou, Jie He, Zhi-Qiang Feng, Long Zhang, Xiao-Bo Lai, Jun-Xiao Zhou, Hong Wang
Wen-Jia Wang, You-Lian Zhou, Jie He, Zhi-Qiang Feng, Long Zhang, Xiao-Bo Lai, Jun-Xiao Zhou, Hong Wang, Department of Gastroenterology, Guangzhou Digestive Disease Center, Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510030, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Wang WJ was responsible for sequencing and data analyses; Zhou YL and He J analyzed dates after sequencing; Feng ZQ, Zhang L and Lai XB collected specimens; Zhou JX contributed to the article and revised it; Wang H conceived the study and drafted the manuscript; Both authors approved the final version of the article.
Supported by Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, No. 2014A020212568; National Key Clinical Specialized Special Funds Programs of China, No. 2013544.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the First People’s Hospital of Guangzhou.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hong Wang, MD, PhD, Chief Physician, Department of Gastroenterology, Guangzhou Digestive Disease Center, Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, South China University of Technology, No. 1 Panfu Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou 510030, Guangdong Province, China. wong.hong@163.com
Received: August 13, 2019
Peer-review started: August 13, 2019
First decision: October 14, 2019
Revised: December 25, 2019
Accepted: January 11, 2020
Article in press: January 11, 2020
Published online: February 14, 2020
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Colorectal adenomas (CRAs) are major precancerous lesions in colorectal cancer (CRC), which can greatly reduce the incidence and mortality of CRC and improve the quality of patient life. At present, many scholars have begun to study the relationship between intestinal flora and CRA. This paper provides a future direction for the prevention and treatment of by measuring the composition and diversity of intestinal flora in CRA patients, as well as the biomarkers related to it.

Research motivation

In order to further study the mechanism of CRC and its precancerous lesion CRA, the composition and diversity of intestinal flora in patients with CRA were determined by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and the related biomarkers were also determined. However, the results obtained in this study need to be further verified in the population, and the relationship between the screened biomarkers and the host needs to be further confirmed.

Research objectives

This study found that the diversity of intestinal flora decreased in patients with CRA, and an increase in the number of Halomonadaceae and Shewanella algae may be a marker of CRA, a finding that provides new insights into the mechanism of CRA and CRC, and their development in the future.

Research methods

The intestinal flora composition of 36 healthy people and 49 patients with advanced CRA in Guangzhou First People’s Hospital was studied by 16s rRNA gene sequencing. The operational taxonomic unit and its abundance analysis, sample diversity analysis, principal component analysis of samples, differential analysis, and analysis of biomarkers were performed via bioinformatics analysis.

Research results

This study found that the diversity of intestinal flora decreased in patients with CRA, and that an increase in the number of Halomonadaceae and Shewanella algae may be a marker of CRA. However, the results of this study need to be further verified in the population, and the relationship between the selected biomarkers and the host needs to be further confirmed.

Research conclusions

CRA is the main precancerous lesion in CRC. In this study, the composition and diversity of intestinal flora in CRA patients were measured by 16s rRNA gene sequencing and bioinformatics. It was found that the diversity of intestinal flora in CRA patients decreased, and that an increase in Halomonadaceae and Shewanella algae may be a biomarker of CRA. However, the results obtained in this study need to be further verified in the population, and the relationship between the selected biomarkers and the host also needs to be further confirmed. This finding provides new ideas for the future study of the mechanism of CRA and CRC.

Research perspectives

This study confirmed the difference in intestinal flora between normal people and CRA patients, and identified possible biomarkers. On this basis, future studies will further confirm the correlation, expand the sample size, and further study the interaction between biomarkers and hosts.