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Metagenomic Analyses Expand Bacterial and Functional Profiling Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer in a Hainan Cohort, China

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Abstract

This study was conducted for the metagenomic analysis of stool samples from CRC affected individuals to identify biomarkers for CRC in Hainan, the only tropical island province of China. The gut microbiota of CRC patients differed significantly from that of healthy and reference database cohorts based on Aitchison distance and Bray–Cutis distance but there was no significant difference in alpha diversity. Furthermore, at the species level, 68 species were significantly altered including 37 CRC-enriched, such as, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Parvimonas micra, Gemella morbillorum, Citrobacter portucalensis, Alloprevotella sp., Shigella sonnei, Coriobacteriaceae bacterium, etc. Sixty-seven different metabolic pathways were acquired, and pathways involved in the synthesis of many amino acids were significantly declined. Besides, 2 identified antibiotic resistance genes performed well (area under the receive-operation curve AUC = 0.833, 95% CI 58.51–100%) compared with virulence factor genes. The results of the present study provide region-specific bacterial and functional biomarkers of gut microbiota for CRC patients in Hainan. Microbiota is considered as a non-invasive biomarker for the detection of CRC. Gut microbiota of different geographic regions should be further studied to expand the understanding of markers, especially for the China cohort due to diverse nationalities and lifestyles.

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Data Availability

The sequence data reported in this paper have been deposited in the NCBI database (metagenomic sequencing data: PRJNA608088, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/all/?term=PRJNA608088). The analyses by R program can be found under: https://github.com/HNUmcc/CRC-cohort-Hainan-China. Further information and requests for resources and code should be directed to and will be fulfilled by the corresponding author (Jiachao Zhang, zhjch322123@163.com).

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank all the volunteers for their participation.

Funding

This work was supported by Key R & D programs in Hainan (Grant No. ZDYF2019150), the Scientific Research Foundation of Hainan University (Grant No. KYQD1548).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Haibo Chang and Rajeev Mishra have equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Food Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, Hainan, People’s Republic of China

    Haibo Chang, Chenchen Ma, Yuanyuan Wang & Jiachao Zhang

  2. Haikou People’s Hospital, Haikou, 570228, Hainan, People’s Republic of China

    Yunqing Tang

  3. Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Animal Sciences, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Rajeev Mishra & Sanjeev Wasti

  4. Hainan General Hospital, Hainan, Hainan Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou, 570228, Hainan, People’s Republic of China

    Chaoping Cen, Qianying Ou & Kaining Chen

Authors
  1. Haibo Chang
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  2. Rajeev Mishra
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  7. Yuanyuan Wang
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  10. Jiachao Zhang
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Contributions

The study was designed by JZ and KNC. The experiment was performed by CM, KC. Data collection was performed by HC, YT, YW and QO. Data analysis was performed by CM, RM and KC. The manuscript was written by CM, RM, KC, SW, JZ and KNC. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Kaining Chen or Jiachao Zhang.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

The protocol for the study was approved by the Ethics Committee Hainan University.

Informed Consent

All the participants in the study were informed about the study and were provided with written consent. Sampling and all described subsequent steps were conducted in accordance with the approved guidelines.

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Chang, H., Mishra, R., Cen, C. et al. Metagenomic Analyses Expand Bacterial and Functional Profiling Biomarkers for Colorectal Cancer in a Hainan Cohort, China. Curr Microbiol 78, 705–712 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-020-02299-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-020-02299-3

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