Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its more severe form (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, NASH) are multi-spectrum diseases involving hepatic fat accumulation occurring in the absence of excessive alcohol intake.
The aim of this work was to investigate gut microbiota composition in term of OTU and metabolite abundances in 4 groups of subjects (NAFL [nr. 27], NASH [n. 26], Obese patients [n. 8], recruited at Pediatric Hospital Bambino Gesù of Rome and healthy age matched controls (7-16 years) [n. 54]).
All samples were submitted to DNA extraction, 16S rRNA amplification and pyrosequenced by Next generation sequencing platform. Also, fecal metabolites were extracted and analyzed by Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
A total of 918,876 sequencing reads were obtained from a total of 115 samples. The majority of the sequences were assigned to six dominant phyla Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Verrucomicrobia, Proteobacteria and Tenericutes, with a predominance of Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, respect to the others in all type of subject categories. A Kruskal-Wallis analysis indicated that Firmicutes and Actinobacteria were statistically prevalent in the patients than in the CTRL children and that the opposite was true for Bacteroidetes.
Different classes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as i.e ketones, aldehydes, indoles, alcohols, phenols, alkanes, alkenes, lactones, terpenes, esters, and sulfur compounds, in patients and compared to controls.
These data are able to depict composition, ecological diversity, and “enterotype”-like patterns of gut microbiota of NASH/NAFLD pediatric patients.
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