Faecal Microbiota Composition in Adults Is Associated with the FUT2 Gene Determining the Secretor Status

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 9; no. 4; p. e94863
• Main Authors: Wacklin, Pirjo, Tuimala, Jarno, Nikkilä, Janne, Sebastian Tims, Mäkivuokko, Harri, Alakulppi, Noora, Laine, Pia, Rajilic-Stojanovic, Mirjana, Paulin, Lars, de Vos, Willem M., Mättö, Jaana
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 01.04.2014; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Adults; Analysis; Antigens; Bioinformatics; Biology and Life Sciences; Blood groups; blood-group antigens; celiac-disease; Clustering; Crohn's disease; Crohns disease; Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Diet; DNA; DNA microarrays; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Endothelin 1; enterotypes; Feces - microbiology; Fucosyltransferases - genetics; Fucosyltransferases - metabolism; FUT2 gene; galactosidase; Galactoside 2-a-L-fucosyltransferase; Galactoside 2-alpha-L-fucosyltransferase; Gene expression; Gene polymorphism; Genetic research; Genetics; Genotype & phenotype; Genotypes; Homeostasis; human gut microbiome; Humans; inflammatory-bowel-disease; intestinal microbiota; Intestinal microflora; Intestine; Laboratories; Medicine and Health Sciences; Microbiota; Microbiota (Symbiotic organisms); Microbiota - genetics; Mitochondrial DNA; Mucosa; Multivariate analysis; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Polymorphism; Population studies; Research and Analysis Methods; rRNA 16S; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Species richness; Taxa; twins; Well being; Finland
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094863

The human intestine is colonised with highly diverse and individually defined microbiota, which likely has an impact on the host well-being. Drivers of the individual variation in the microbiota compositions are multifactorial and include environmental, host and dietary factors. We studied the impact of the host secretor status, encoded by fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT2) -gene, on the intestinal microbiota composition. Secretor status determines the expression of the ABH and Lewis histo-blood group antigens in the intestinal mucosa. The study population was comprised of 14 non-secretor (FUT2 rs601338 genotype AA) and 57 secretor (genotypes GG and AG) adult individuals of western European descent. Intestinal microbiota was analyzed by PCR-DGGE and for a subset of 12 non-secretor subjects and 12 secretor subjects additionally by the 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing and the HITChip phylogenetic microarray analysis. All three methods showed distinct clustering of the intestinal microbiota and significant differences in abundances of several taxa representing dominant microbiota between the non-secretors and the secretors as well as between the FUT2 genotypes. In addition, the non-secretors had lower species richness than the secretors. The soft clustering of microbiota into enterotypes (ET) 1 and 3 showed that the non-secretors had a higher probability of belonging to ET1 and the secretors to ET3. Our study shows that secretor status and FUT2 polymorphism are associated with the composition of human intestinal microbiota, and appears thus to be one of the key drivers affecting the individual variation of human intestinal microbiota.