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Gastrointestinal Characteristics of Constipation from the Perspectives of Microbiome and Metabolome

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Abstract

Background

Constipation is one of the most common gastrointestinal complaints. Yet, the underlying mechanisms of constipation remain to be explored deeply. Integration of microbiome and metabolome is powerful and promising to demonstrate characteristics of constipation.

Aim of Study

This study aimed to characterize intestinal microbiome and metabolome of constipation. In addition, this study revealed the correlations among behaviors, intestinal microbiota, and metabolites interrupted by constipation.

Methods

Firstly, the constipation model was successfully applied. At the macro level, the ability of learning, memory, locomotor activity, and the defecation index of rats with constipation-like phenotype were characterized. At the micro-level, 16S rRNA sequencing was applied to analyze the intestinal microbiota in rats with constipation-like phenotype. 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics was employed to investigate the metabolic phenotype of constipation. In addition, we constructed a correlation network, intuitively showing the correlations among behaviors, intestinal microbiota, and metabolites.

Results

Constipation significantly attenuated the locomotor activity, memory recognition, and frequency of defecation of rats, while increased the time of defecation. Constipation significantly changed the diversity of intestinal microbial communities, which correspondingly involved in 5 functional pathways. Besides, 28 fecal metabolites were found to be associated with constipation, among which 14 metabolites were further screened that can be used to diagnose constipation. On top of this, associated networks intuitively showed the correlations among behaviors, intestinal microbiota, and metabolites.

Conclusions

The current findings are significant in terms of not only laying a foundation for understanding characteristics of constipation, but also providing accurate diagnosis and treatments of constipation clinically.

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Funding

The current work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82274360), Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province (202203021221030), Research Project Supported by Shanxi Scholarship Council of China (2022-026), Graduate Course Project (2023YZ10), and Postgraduate Practice Innovation Project (2023SJ038).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Huimin Wang and Di Zhao have contributed equally to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Modern Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanxi University, No. 92, Wucheng Rd. Xiaodian Dist., Taiyuan, 030006, Shanxi, China

    Huimin Wang, Di Zhao, Senyan Wang, Huanle Liu, Zhenyu Li, Xuemei Qin & Xiaojie Liu

  2. The Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Shanxi University, No. 92, Wucheng Rd. Xiaodian Dist., Taiyuan, 030006, Shanxi, China

    Huimin Wang, Di Zhao, Senyan Wang, Huanle Liu, Zhenyu Li, Xuemei Qin & Xiaojie Liu

  3. Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Shanxi University, No. 92, Wucheng Rd. Xiaodian Dist., Taiyuan, 030006, Shanxi, China

    Huimin Wang, Di Zhao, Senyan Wang, Huanle Liu, Zhenyu Li, Xuemei Qin & Xiaojie Liu

  4. Department of Pharmacology, Shanxi Institute for Food and Drug Control, No. 12, Taiyuan South Rd., Yingze Dist, Taiyuan, 030001, Shanxi, China

    Sijun Zhao

Authors
  1. Huimin Wang
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Contributions

HW and DZ analyzed the data and wrote the paper. SW and DZ performed the experiments and analyzed the data. HL participated in discussion analysis and literature collations. SZ helped in the execution of research. ZL and XQ reviewed the paper. XL conceived designed the experiments and reviewed the paper. All authors have read, improved, and approved the manuscript. The authors declare that all data were generated in-house and that no paper mill was used.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaojie Liu.

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All of the authors claim that there is no conflict of interests among the authors.

Ethical approval

All animal experiments were approved by the Guidelines for Proper Conduct of Animal Experiments, and were approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Shanxi University.

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Wang, H., Zhao, D., Wang, S. et al. Gastrointestinal Characteristics of Constipation from the Perspectives of Microbiome and Metabolome. Dig Dis Sci 69, 1318–1335 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-024-08334-8

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