Abstract
Crohn's disease (CD) is an inflammatory bowel disease of complex etiology, although dysbiosis of the gut microbiota has been implicated in chronic immune-mediated inflammation associated with CD. Here we combined shotgun metagenomic and metaproteomic approaches to identify potential functional signatures of CD in stool samples from six twin pairs that were either healthy, or that had CD in the ileum (ICD) or colon (CCD). Integration of these omics approaches revealed several genes, proteins, and pathways that primarily differentiated ICD from healthy subjects, including depletion of many proteins in ICD. In addition, the ICD phenotype was associated with alterations in bacterial carbohydrate metabolism, bacterial-host interactions, as well as human host-secreted enzymes. This eco-systems biology approach underscores the link between the gut microbiota and functional alterations in the pathophysiology of Crohn's disease and aids in identification of novel diagnostic targets and disease specific biomarkers.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e49138 |
Journal | PLoS ONE |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 28 2012 |
Funding
The next step is to determine how the human microbiome varies with disease. As part of a demonstration project funded through the NIH Human Microbiome Project (HMP) we have focused on the impact of the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn's disease on the gut microbiota. Although most human host-microbe associations are beneficial, several studies using both culture-dependent and molecular approaches have suggested that there is a dysbiosis in the gut microbiota of patients with Crohn's disease (CD) compared to healthy subjects –. In the current study we specifically aimed to focus on functional differences in the gut that may account for the previously observed dysbiosis.