Elsevier

Autoimmunity Reviews

Volume 14, Issue 4, April 2015, Pages 269-276
Autoimmunity Reviews

Review
Behçet's syndrome patients exhibit specific microbiome signature

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autrev.2014.11.009Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • BS is a vasculitis with muco-cutaneous, ocular, and gastro-intestinal involvement.

  • BS is associated to a peculiar dysbiosis of the gut microbial ecosystem.

  • Gut microbiota ecosystem in BS is characterized by a low biodiversity.

  • BS patients show a decrease of butyrate production.

Abstract

Background and aims

Behçet syndrome is a systemic inflammatory condition characterized by muco-cutaneous and ocular manifestations, with central nervous system, vascular and/or gastro-intestinal involvement. The association of microbiota with Behçet syndrome has not been shown yet. Our work was aimed to compare the gut microbiota structure and the profiles of short-chain fatty acids production in Behçet syndrome patients and healthy control relatives.

Methods

Here, we compared the fecal microbiota of 22 patients with Behçet syndrome and that of 16 healthy co-habiting controls, sharing the same diet and lifestyle by pyrosequencing of the V3–V4 hypervariable regions of the 16 rDNA gene and biochemical analyses.

Results

Our analyses showed significant differences in gut microbiota between Behçet patients and healthy cohabitants. In particular we found that Behçet's patients were significantly depleted in the genera Roseburia and Subdoligranulum. Roseburia showed a relative abundance value of 10.45 ± 6.01% in healthy relatives and 4.97 ± 5.09% in Behçet's patients, and Subdoligranulum, which reached a relative abundance of 3.28 ± 2.20% in healthy controls, was only at 1.93 ± 1.75% of abundance in Behçet's patients. Here we report, for the first time, that a peculiar dysbiosis of the gut microbiota is present in patients with Behçet syndrome and this corresponds to specific changes in microbiome profile. A significant decrease of butyrate production (P = 0.0033) in Behçet's patients was demonstrated. Butyrate is able to promote differentiation of T-regulatory cells, and consequently the results obtained prompt us to speculate that a defect of butyrate production might lead to both reduced T-reg responses and activation of immuno-pathological T-effector responses.

Conclusions

Altogether, our results indicate that both a peculiar dysbiosis of the gut microbiota and a significant decrease of butyrate production are present in patients with Behçet syndrome.

Abbreviations

BS
Behçet syndrome
GC–MS
gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
GM
gut microbiota
HLA
human leukocyte antigen
IBD
inflammatory bowel disease
ISGC
International Study Group Criteria
OTU
operational taxonomic units
PCoA
principal coordinate analysis
PD
phylogenetic diversity
SCFA
short chain fatty acid
Treg
T regulatory cell

Keywords

Behçet
Gut microbiota
Pyrosequencing
Immune system response

Cited by (0)

1

C. Consolandi, S. Turroni, and G. Emmi equally contributed to this research article.