Liver cirrhosis is a major public health problem, accounting for high rates of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The cirrhosis etiology is a broad and essential step in planning a treatment strategy. Many recent studies have documented that gut microbiome alterations play a vital role in the development and progression of cirrhosis and its complications. Nevertheless, there is insufficient data on the correlation between liver cirrhosis and gut phageome alterations in patients with advanced liver diseases. This study aimed to analyze the taxonomic structure and functional attributes of the gut phageome in six different etiologies of advanced liver cirrhosis. We first retrieved metagenomic sequencing data from three datasets of fecal samples taken from cirrhotic patients with various etiologies. Subsequently, several bioinformatics pipelines were used to analyze bacteriophage composition and determine their functionality. A gene catalog of 479,425 non-redundant genes was developed as a reference to measure gene prevalence. The results of the analysis revealed a few significant differences among the cohorts at the phage species level. However, the alternations were more evident as there were more in-depth analyses of the functional resolution of the gut phageome. Our findings suggest that the functional analysis of the gut phageome would provide meaningful markers to predict the progression of liver cirrhosis and facilitate the development of novel treatment approaches.

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明确病因的晚期肝硬化中人类肠道噬菌体的研究和表征

肝硬化是一个主要的公共卫生问题，是全球高发病率和死亡率的原因。肝硬化病因是规划治疗策略的一个广泛而重要的步骤。最近的许多研究表明，肠道微生物组的改变在肝硬化及其并发症的发展和进展中起着至关重要的作用。然而，关于肝硬化与晚期肝病患者肠道噬菌体改变之间相关性的数据不足。本研究旨在分析晚期肝硬化六种不同病因中肠道噬菌体的分类结构和功能属性。我们首先从取自不同病因的肝硬化患者粪便样本的三个数据集中检索宏基因组测序数据。随后，几个生物信息学管道被用来分析噬菌体组成并确定它们的功能。开发了一个包含 479,425 个非冗余基因的基因目录，作为衡量基因流行率的参考。分析结果揭示了噬菌体物种水平的队列之间存在一些显着差异。然而，随着对肠道噬菌体功能分辨率的更深入分析，这种变化更加明显。我们的研究结果表明，肠道噬菌体的功能分析将提供有意义的标志物来预测肝硬化的进展并促进新治疗方法的开发。分析结果揭示了噬菌体物种水平的队列之间存在一些显着差异。然而，随着对肠道噬菌体功能分辨率的更深入分析，这种变化更加明显。我们的研究结果表明，肠道噬菌体的功能分析将提供有意义的标志物来预测肝硬化的进展并促进新治疗方法的开发。分析结果揭示了噬菌体物种水平的队列之间存在一些显着差异。然而，随着对肠道噬菌体功能分辨率的更深入分析，这种变化更加明显。我们的研究结果表明，肠道噬菌体的功能分析将提供有意义的标志物来预测肝硬化的进展并促进新治疗方法的开发。