Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Affects the Rat Gut Microbiome

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2018 Jun 28

PMID 29946072

Citations 45

Authors

Maria Callejo

Gema Mondejar-Parreno

Bianca Barreira

Jose L Izquierdo-Garcia

Daniel Morales-Cano

Sergio Esquivel-Ruiz

Laura Moreno

Angel Cogolludo

Juan Duarte

Francisco Perez-Vizcaino

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We have analysed whether pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) alters the rat faecal microbiota. Wistar rats were injected with the VEGF receptor antagonist SU5416 (20 mg/kg s.c.) and followed for 2 weeks kept in hypoxia (10% O, PAH) or injected with vehicle and kept in normoxia (controls). Faecal samples were obtained and microbiome composition was determined by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. No effect of PAH on the global microbiome was found (α- or β-diversity). However, PAH-exposed rats showed gut dysbiosis as indicated by a taxonomy-based analysis. Specifically, PAH rats had a three-fold increase in Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio. Within the Firmicutes phylum, there were no large changes in the relative abundance of the bacterial families in PAH. Among Bacteroidetes, all families were less abundant in PAH. A clear separation was observed between the control and PAH clusters based on short chain fatty acid producing bacterial genera. Moreover, acetate was reduced in the serum of PAH rats. In conclusion, faecal microbiota composition is altered as a result of PAH. This misbalanced bacterial ecosystem might in turn play a pathophysiological role in PAH by altering the immunologic, hormonal and metabolic homeostasis.

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