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Alterations of the intestinal microbiome and metabolome in women with rheumatoid arthritis

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Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is more common in women, and many reports of sex differences have been reported in various aspects of RA. However, there has been a lack of specific research on women’s gut flora. To assess the association between the gut flora and RA patients, this study combined the microbiome with metabolomics. Fecal samples from RA patients and healthy controls were collected for 16S rRNA sequencing. Nontargeted liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry was used to detect metabolites in fecal samples. We comprehensively used various analytical methods to reveal changes in intestinal flora and metabolites in female patients. The gut flora of RA patients was significantly different from that of healthy women. The abundance of Bacteroides, Megamonas and Oscillospira was higher in RA patients, while the abundance of Prevotella, Gemmiger and Roseburia was lower than that of healthy women. Gemmiger, Bilophila and Odoribacter represented large differences in microflora between RA and healthy women and could be used as potential microorganisms in the diagnosis. Fatty acid biosynthesis was significantly different between RA patients and healthy women in terms of metabolic pathways. There were different degrees of correlation between the gut flora and metabolites. Lys-Phe-Lys and heptadecasphin-4-enine can be used as potential markers for RA diagnosis. There was an extremely significant positive correlation between Megamonas, Dialister and rheumatoid factors, which was found for the first time. These findings indicated that alterations of these gut microbiome and metabolome may contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of RA patients.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all investigators and supporters involved in this study. The manuscript had been polished by one or more of the highly qualified native English speaking editors at AJE, and this certificate was verified on the AJE website using the verification code 4OEA-BCC5-9OED-CD19-9754.

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation Project of Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (XZR2020039), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (81871709).

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Author notes

  1. Haifeng Yun, Xinxin Wang, Changjiang Wei, and Qiuhong Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, Suzhou TCM Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, 18 Yang-Su Road, Suzhou, 215003, People’s Republic of China

    Haifeng Yun, Qiuhong Liu, Xianyan Li, Na Li & Rui Liu

  2. Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, 211100, People’s Republic of China

    Xinxin Wang

  3. Department of Surgery, The Fifth People’s Hospital of Suzhou, 10 Guangqian Road, Suzhou, 215000, People’s Republic of China

    Changjiang Wei

  4. Department of Physiology, Medical College of Soochow University, 199 Ren-Ai Road, Dushu Lake Campus, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Guoxing Zhang

  5. Department of Blood Transfusion, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Key Laboratory of Clinical In Vitro Diagnostic Techniques of Zhejiang Province, 79 Qinchun Road, Hangzhou, 310003, People’s Republic of China

    Dawei Cui

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  1. Haifeng Yun
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Contributions

RL and DWC contributed to conception and design. HFY contributed to methodology and interpretation. LXY and NL contributed to data collection. XXW and CJW contributed to statistical analysis. XXW and RL contributed to writing—original draft. GXZ, QHL, and DWC contributed to writing—review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Dawei Cui or Rui Liu.

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The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

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All patients and healthy volunteers signed informed consent forms, which were approved by the ethics committee of Suzhou TCM Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine (ethics approval number: 2021–266), and written informed consent was obtained from all participants. The study complied with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/).

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Yun, H., Wang, X., Wei, C. et al. Alterations of the intestinal microbiome and metabolome in women with rheumatoid arthritis. Clin Exp Med 23, 4695–4706 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-023-01161-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10238-023-01161-7

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