Characteristics of gut microbiota and their correlation with clinical parameters in patients with cholestatic liver disease

Objective To investigate the diversity and composition of gut microbiota in patient with cholestatic liver disease, and explore their correlation with clinical parameters. Methods Fresh stool samples from 16 patients with cholestatic liver disease and 19 healthy controls were collected, and 16S rRNA sequencing was used to analyze the diversity of gut microbiota and composition characteristics. Pearson analysis was employed to analyze the correlation between the different bacteria and clinical parameters. Results There were no statistical differences in the baseline data, such as sex, age and body mass index (BMI) in study subjects (P>0.05), but significant differences were observed in serum indexes among them (P < 0.01). The results of α diversity showed that Chao1 and Shannon indexes were lower in the study group, but there was no statistical difference (P>0.05). β diversity results indicated that the species diversity had significant difference between 2 group (P < 0.01). Further analysis of microbiota composition showed largely relative abundance of Bacteroides, Lachnoclostridium, Veillonella, Roseburia and Escherichia shigella (P < 0.05), while the abundance of Blautia were dramatically decreased (P < 0.05). Pearson analysis displayed that Lachnoclostridium was strongly correlated with serum level of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (P < 0.01) and gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) (P < 0.05), and Veillonella was also strongly correlated with GGT (P < 0.05). Conclusion Compared with healthy controls, the patients with cholestatic liver disease have obvious characteristic changes in the gut microbiota. The relatively high abundance of Veillonella is closely assocatied with cholestatic liver disease.