Study on the Characteristics of Gut Microbiota in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients with Damp Heat Syndrome and Liver Depression and Spleen Deficiency Syndrome

Background: To explore the potential biological characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) syndromes in CHB patients is of great significance to improve the level of TCM treatment.This study was designed to explore the characteristics of gut microbiota in CHB patients with two most common TCM Syndromes.Methods: According to the diagnostic criteria of Western medicine, TCM and screening exclusion criteria, 65 cases of CHB patients with damp heat syndrome and 28 cases of CHB patients with liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome were finally included in the study. All the basic information was gathered and the fresh fecal samples were collected for 16S rDNA sequencing. 16S rDNA of gut microbiota was sequenced using Illumina hiseq 2500 high-throughput sequencing platform.Based on the optimized sequence, OTU clustering analysis and taxonomic annotation were carried out. Results: The difference in relative abundance of gut microbiota was significant between damp heat syndrome and liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome in CHB patients. Cyanobacteria was only found in damp heat syndrome.The relative abundance of Erysipelotrichia and Subdoligranulum were higher in liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome,while the relative abundance of Rhodospirillales, Alphaproteobacteria,and Lachnospira were higher in the damp heat syndrome.LEfSe analysis showed that Lachnospira,Olsenella and Subdoligranulum had significant difference in species among the two TCM syndromes.Conclusions: The different characteristics of gut microbiota in the two TCM syndromes of CHB patients may play an important role in syndrome formation of TCM,which provides a new field of vision for the accurate diagnosis and treatment of TCM.