High-throughput sequencing analysis of differences in intestinal microflora between ulcerative colitis patients with different glucocorticoid response types.

Previous investigations reported that the imbalance of intestinal microflora may be the initiation and promotion factor in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease such as ulcerative colitis (UC). Glucocorticoid is a very important class of regulatory molecules in the body. The response of different individuals to glucocorticoids can be divided into glucocorticoid sensitive, glucocorticoid resistance and glucocorticoid dependence. We aimed to investigate the differences in intestinal microflora composition and related metabolic pathways in UC patients with these three different glucocorticoid response types. The whole genomic DNA was extracted from fecal specimens. High-throughput sequencing technology was used to analyze the fecal 16S rRNA genome of UC patients with different glucocorticoid response types, and functional prediction was performed by PICRUSTs software. The results showed that the intestinal microflora of the three groups were mainly composed of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Although the species abundance and diversity of intestinal microflora in UC patients differed little among the three groups, the composition of intestinal microflora showed significant heterogeneity, which directly led to differences in the function of intestinal microbiota of UC patients with different glucocorticoid responses. Furthermore, of the 240 pathways, “PANTO-PWY: phosphopantothenate biosynthesis I”, “COA-PWY-1: coenzyme A biosynthesis II (mammalian)” and “PWY-4242: pantothenate and coenzyme A biosynthesis III” were significantly different in the three groups. These results indicate that UC patients with different glucocorticoids response types have different bacterial compositions and functions, which lays a foundation for further study of glucocorticoid resistance in UC patients.