Gut microbiota dysbiosis contributes to the development of hypertension.

Bin Geng, Jun Cai, Baoli Zhu, Xinchun Yang, Li Chen, Xiaoyan Liu, Lei Yang, Kelda Auguste, Ryan Weldon, Weili Zhang, Jing Li, Qinghua Cui, Wenbin Liu, Shouling Wu, Gang Tian, Jie Tao, Junru Chen, Yidan Wang, Fangqing Zhao

Journal: Microbiome 2017;5(1):14

PMID: 28143587

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Plain Language Summary

There have been limited studies linking gut microbes as a therapeutic approach for the treatment of hypertension(HTN) which is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The aim of this study is to identify whether gut microbial changes leading to gut dysbiosis are associated with HTN. The study method was based on analyses of the total bacterial genetic material of stool samples from a cohort of 196 Chinese individuals. The results demonstrated that decreased diversity and variation in the gut bacterial population were associated with both prehypertension and HTN. Henceforth the authors concluded that status of gut microbiota seems to be directly linked indicating functional dysbiosis may contribute to HTN, but of course, further studies are needed before establishing a causal relationship.

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Recently, the potential role of gut microbiome in metabolic diseases has been revealed, especially in cardiovascular diseases. Hypertension is one of the most prevalent cardiovascular diseases worldwide, yet whether gut microbiota dysbiosis participates in the development of hypertension remains largely unknown. To investigate this issue, we carried out comprehensive metagenomic and metabolomic analyses in a cohort of 41 healthy controls, 56 subjects with pre-hypertension, 99 individuals with primary hypertension, and performed fecal microbiota transplantation from patients to germ-free mice.

RESULTS

Compared to the healthy controls, we found dramatically decreased microbial richness and diversity, Prevotella-dominated gut enterotype, distinct metagenomic composition with reduced bacteria associated with healthy status and overgrowth of bacteria such as Prevotella and Klebsiella, and disease-linked microbial function in both pre-hypertensive and hypertensive populations. Unexpectedly, the microbiome characteristic in pre-hypertension group was quite similar to that in hypertension. The metabolism changes of host with pre-hypertension or hypertension were identified to be closely linked to gut microbiome dysbiosis. And a disease classifier based on microbiota and metabolites was constructed to discriminate pre-hypertensive and hypertensive individuals from controls accurately. Furthermore, by fecal transplantation from hypertensive human donors to germ-free mice, elevated blood pressure was observed to be transferrable through microbiota, and the direct influence of gut microbiota on blood pressure of the host was demonstrated.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, our results describe a novel causal role of aberrant gut microbiota in contributing to the pathogenesis of hypertension. And the significance of early intervention for pre-hypertension was emphasized.

Address: Hypertension Center, Fuwai Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease of China, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases of China, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100037, China.; Department of Cardiology, Beijing ChaoYang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100020, China.; Beijing Key Laboratory of Hypertension, Beijing, 100020, China.; Computational Genomics Laboratory, Beijing Institutes of Life Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.; Novogene Bioinformatics Institute, Beijing, 100000, China.; Department of Cardiology, Baoding NO.1 Central Hospital, Baoding, 071000, China.; Department of Cardiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710061, China.; Department of Cardiology Kailuan General Hospital, Hebei Union University, Tangshan, 063000, China.; Department of Biomedical Informatics, Centre for Noncoding RNA Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China.; Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204, USA.; Medical Research Center, Beijing ChaoYang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100020, China.; Department of Stem Cell Engineering, Texas Heart Institute, Houston, TX, 77030, USA.; Tongji Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430030, China.; Department of Cardiology, Beijing ChaoYang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100020, China. [email protected].; Beijing Key Laboratory of Hypertension, Beijing, 100020, China. [email protected].; CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China. [email protected].; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310003, China. [email protected].; Hypertension Center, Fuwai Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease of China, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases of China, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100037, China. [email protected].

DOI: 10.1186/s40168-016-0222-x

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MeSH Terms: Animals, Blood Pressure, Cohort Studies, Dysbiosis, Essential Hypertension, Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Gastrointestinal Tract, Germ-Free Life, Humans, Hypertension, Klebsiella, Male, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Prehypertension, Prevotella, Prospective Studies