Introduction: The composition of fecal microbiota is changed after spinal cord injury. The change of microbiota has been known to affect and be affected by host immunity and metabolism in patients with spinal cord injury. Nevertheless, the fecal microbiota composition in patients with spina bifida, the congenital disease of spinal cord has never been reported. Considering the difference of metabolism, infection, mood, and life style in children with spinal cord injury, we hypothesized the significant change in the composition of their gut microbiota and performed comparative analysis of them and healthy controls.
Methods: We performed prospective case-control study on 30 children (2-12 years old) with spinal bifida and 10 healthy controls (Clinical trial.gov, NCT 04186130). The composition of fecal microbiota was analyzed in genus level with 16S rRNA sequencing.
Results: The median age of patient and control group were 7.4 and 7.7 years, respectively without statistical difference. Fifteen(50.0%) and 6(60.0%) were male in patient and control group, respectively. Meningomyelocele, lipomeningomyelocele, and scaral agenesis was observed in 8(26.7%), 19(63.3%), and 3(10.0%) patients in patient group, respectively. Among patient group, 21 patients (70.0%) were on clean intermittent catheterization and 23 patients (76.7%) were with anticholinergic or beta-3 agonist medication.
Faecalibacterim and Bacteroides were significantly more abundant in control group. On linear discriminant analysis, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus were related with spinal bifida group. Butyrate producing bacterias such as Faecalibacterium, Bacteroides, Lachnospiraceae, and Roseburia were related to normal control.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate for the first time that butyrate-producing bacterias were reduced in children with spinal bifida. It is consistent with previous results in patients with spinal cord injury.
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