Compositional changes in fecal microbiota associated with clinical phenotypes and prognosis in Korean patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Background/Aims The fecal microbiota of Korean patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) was investigated with respect to disease phenotypes and taxonomic biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of IBD. Methods Fecal samples from 70 ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, 39 Crohn’s disease (CD) patients, and 100 healthy control individuals (HC) were collected. The fecal samples were amplified via polymerase chain reaction and sequenced using Illumina MiSeq. The relationships between fecal bacteria and clinical phenotypes were analyzed using the EzBioCloud database and 16S microbiome pipeline. Results The alpha-diversity of fecal bacteria was significantly lower in UC and CD (P