Enteric Virome and Bacterial Microbiota in Children with Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease

Objectives: We examined the fecal enteric virome and bacterial community composition of children with Crohn's disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), and healthy controls to test the hypothesis that unique patterns of viral organisms and/or presence of bacterial pathogens may be identified that could contribute to the pathogenesis of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods: Fecal samples from 24 children (mean 12.2 years) with CD (n = 7) or UC (n = 5) and similar aged controls (n = 12) were processed to determine individual viromes. Viral sequences were identified through translated protein sequence similarity search. Bacterial microbiota were determined by sequencing of the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Results: Only a few human viruses were detected, so virome analyses focused on bacterial viruses. The relative abundance of Caudovirales was greater than that of Microviridae phages in both IBD and healthy controls. Caudovirales phages were more abundant in CD (mean 80.8%) than UC (48.8%) (p = 0.05) but not controls. The richness of viral strains in Microviridae but not Caudovirales was higher in controls than CD (p = 0.05) but not UC cases. No other measure of phage abundance, richness, or Shannon diversity showed significant difference between the two IBD and control groups. Bacterial microbiota analysis revealed that IBD diagnosis, albumin, hemoglobin, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and probiotic supplementation correlated to the composition of gut bacterial microbiota. Conclusions: Minor patterns in gut virome and bacterial community composition distinguish pediatric IBD patients from healthy controls. Probiotics are associated with bacterial microbiota composition. These exploratory results need confirmation in larger studies.