Prospecting the Intricate Role of Intestinal Microbe and Microbial Metabolite Biomarkers in Schizophrenia

Abstract

Abstract Background: The brain-gut axis has gained increasing attention due to its contribution to the etiology of various central nervous system disorders. In particular, impaired intestinal microflora and intestinal metabolite dysbiosis have been implicated in schizophrenia. Methods: In this study, we used a 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) gene sequence–based approach and an untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based metabolic profiling approach to measure the gut microbiome and microbial metabolites from 44 healthy controls, 41 acute patients, and 39 remission patients, to evaluate whether microbial dysbiosis and microbial metabolite biomarkers were linked with the severity of schizophrenic symptoms. Results: Here, we identified 20 dominant disturbances in the gut microbial composition of patients compared with healthy controls, with 3 orders, 4 families, 9 genera, and 4 species. Several unique bacterial taxa associated with schizophreniaseverity. Compared with healthy controls, 145 unusual microflora metabolites were detected in the acute and remission groups, which were mainly involved in environmental information processing, metabolism, organismal systems, and human diseases in the Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes pathway. The Sankey diagram showed that 4 abnormal intestinal and 4 anomalous intestinal microbial metabolites were associated with psychiatric clinical symptoms. Conclusions: These findings suggest a possible interactive influence of the gut microbiota and their metabolites on the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.