Characterization of the intestinal microorganism in patients with congenital intestinal atresia: the exploration for establishment and influence of initial intestinal flora in newborns

Purpose The mechanism of initial establishment of neonatal intestinal flora was investigated by the analyzing the characteristics of microflora differences in the proximal and distal intestinal bowels of newborns with intestinal atresia. Meanwhile, the differential metabolic pathways were applied to function prediction on potential effects for the gravidas and fetus. Method The microecological characteristics of intestinal flora were extracted by 16SrRNA sequencing technology. Then, the α and β diversity describing the composition of the microflora were compared between three groups. Furthermore, PCoA was applied to identify and quantify the differential microflora among samples. Finally, PICRUSt software was used to explore possible potential impacts due to differential metabolic pathways of the flora through comparison with public databases. Result In this study, samples from 23 proximal and distal intestinal atresia as well as the first meconium from 25 normal neonates were collected according to the selection criteria. There was no significant difference in baseline information between control and intestinal atresia groups (P>0.05). The α-diversity analysis indicated that there were more flora species in the control group, the distal group showed more complex colony structure, but the proximal group showed the lowest species and diversity. While the β-diversity analysis suggested that there was a significant difference in the bacterial structure between the control group and the distal bowel group (P<0.05), and the difference in the bacterial structure between the distal bowel group and the normal control group was significantly higher compared to the proximal bowel group. Then, the functional prediction suggested that the differential metabolic pathway could protect the intestinal mucosal barrier, but it may also have negative effects on the blood glucose control and lipid transport of gravidas and fetuses, and may even bring negative emotions to pregnant women. Conclusion Statistically different microflora in the three groups suggested that the establishment of neonatal initial flora may results from the combination of intestinal infection through the placenta and colonization through the digestive tract. Subsequently, the differential metabolic pathway was predicted to protect the intestinal tract of children, but it may also interfere with emotional control, the glucose and lipid metabolism.