Chronic functional constipation is a kind of common intestinal disease that occurs in children, adults and elderly people. This disease not only causes great influence to physiological function, but also results in varying degrees of psychological barriers. At present, constipation treatments continue to rely on traditional methods such as purgative therapy and surgery. However, these approaches can disrupt intestinal function. Recent research between intestinal diseases and gut microbiota has gradually revealed a connection between constipation and intestinal flora disturbance, providing a theoretical basis for microbial treatment in chronic constipation. Microbial treatment mainly includes probiotic preparations such as probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and fecal microbiota transplantation(FMT). Due to its safety, convenience and curative effect, probiotic preparations have been widely accepted, especially gradually developed FMT with higher curative effects. Microbial treatment improves clinical symptoms, promotes the recovery of intestinal flora, and has no complications during the treatment process. Compared with traditional treatments, microbial treatment in chronic constipation has advantages, and is worthy of further promotion from clinical research to clinical application.
An intricate relationship exists and interactions occur between gut microbiota and colorectal cancer(CRC).Radical surgery combined with adjuvant chemotherapy(AC) serves as the mainstream therapeutic scheme for most CRC patients.The current research was conducted to assess the effect of surgery or chemotherapy on gut microbiota.Forty-three CRC patients who received radical surgery and AC were enrolled.Fecal samples were collected preoperatively,postoperatively,and after the first to fifth cycles of postoperative chemotherapy.The microbial community of each sample was analyzed using high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing.Compared with preoperative samples,fecal samples collected postoperatively exhibited a significant decrease of obligate anaerobes,tumor-related bacteria,and butyric acid-producing bacteria.However,a significant increase of some conditional pathogens was observed.In addition,the AC regimen(CapeOx) was found to alter intestinal microbiota dramatically.In particular,several changes were observed after chemotherapy including an increase of pathogenic bacteria,the "rebound effect" of chemotherapy-adapted bacteria,the shift of lactate-utilizing microbiota from Veillonella to Butyricimonas and Butyricicoccus,as well as the decrease of probiotics.Both radical surgery and CapeOx chemotherapy exert a non-negligible effect on the gut microbiota of CRC patients.Microbiota-based intervention may be beneficial for patients during postoperative clinical management.
Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease and gut microbiota participate in the establishment of intestinal immunity. This study was performed to identify the fecal microbial composition of psoriasis patients, and investigated the influence of subgroup(type and severity) on the fecal microbial composition, and to define the key microbiota in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. Fecal samples from 35 psoriasis patients and 27 healthy controls were sequenced by 16 S rRNA and then analyzed by informatics methods. We found that the microbiota of the psoriasis group differed from that of the heathy group. The relative abundances of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were inverted at the phylum level, and 16 kinds of phylotype at the genus level were found with significant difference. No microbial diversity and composition alteration were observed among the four types of psoriasis. The microbiota of psoriasis patients in the severe state differs from those of psoriasis patients with more mild conditions and also the healthy controls. The veillonella in fecal microbiota showed a positive relationship with h-CRP in blood. This research proved that psoriasis patients have a significant disturbed microbiota profiles. Further study of psoriasis based on microbiota may provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of psoriasis and more evidence for the prevention and treatment of psoriasis.
To obtain the maximum angiotensin-I converting enzyme(ACE) inhibitory activity, the protein hydrolysis conditions of the jellyfish Rhopilema hispidum were optimized using response surface methodology(RSM). Trypsin was selected to produce R. hispidum protein hydrolysates(RPH) with ACE inhibitory activity. The optimal parameters for producing protein hydrolysates with the highest ACE inhibitory activity were as follows: hydrolysis time 5 h, hydrolysis temperature 50℃, and the enzyme-to-substrate ratio 6%. Under these conditions, the ACE inhibitory rate of RPH could reach 64.28% ± 5.72%. In addition, RPH contained high levels of Gly, Glu, Pro, Ala, Asp and Arg, with a molecular weight distribution range of 0.32–6.84 kDa. The following three novel ACE inhibitory peptides were isolated and identified: Ile-Gly-Glu-Thr-Gly-Pro, Gly-Ala-Thr-Gly-Pro-Ala-Gly-Tyr-Val and Gly-AlaPhe-Gly-Pro-Gly-Gly-Leu-Val-Gly-Arg-Pro. The IC_(50) values of the ACE inhibitory activity of these three purified peptides were 19.07, 27.42 and 31.26 μmol L^(-1), respectively. These results suggested that proteins and peptides isolated from R. hispidum could be utilized as antihypertensive functional food sources.
SUN ZhenliangQIN HuanlongCAO DuoYAN XuebingLI HaoHUANG LinshengQU XiaoKONG ChengWANG Man
Background Antibiotics,a common strategy used for neonatal infection,show consistent effect on the gut microbiota of neonates.Supplementation with probiotics has become increasingly popular in mitigating the loss of the gut microbiota.However,no clear consensus recommending the use of probiotics in the infection of neonates currently exists.This study examined the effects of probiotics on the gut microbiota of infectious neonates when used concurrently with or during the recovery period following antibiotic therapy.Methods Fifty-five full-term neonates diagnosed with neonatal infections were divided into the following groups:NI(no intervention,antibiotic therapy only),PCA(probiotics used concurrently with antibiotics),and PAA(probiotics used after antibiotics).The NI group received antibiotic treatment(piperacillin–tazobactam)for 1 week and the PCA group received antibiotic treatment together with probiotics(Bifidobacterium longum,Lactobacillus acidophilus,and Enterococcus faecalis)for 1 week.The PAA group received antibiotic treatment for 1 week followed by probiotics for 1 week.Fecal samples were collected at four time nodes:newborn,1 week,2 weeks,and 42 days after birth.The composition of the gut microbiota was determined by the high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons.Results Antibiotic exposure was found to dramatically alter gut microbiota,with a significant decrease of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus.The use of probiotics did not restore the overall diversity of the gut microbiota.However,using probiotics simultaneously with the antibiotics was found to be beneficial for the gut microbiota as compared to delaying the use of probiotics to follow treatment with antibiotics,particularly in promoting the abundance of Bifidobacterium.Conclusions These results suggest that the early use of probiotics may have a potential ability to remodel the gut microbiota during recovery from antibiotic treatment.However,further study is required to fully understand the long-term effects including the clinical ben
Hui ZhongXiang-Geng WangJing WangYan-Jie ChenHuan-Long QinRong Yang
