Gut microbiome in pSS. Gut microbiome in patients with primary Sjogren’s syndrome

Emerging evidence highlights the critical role of the gut microbiome in autoimmune diseases, including primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS). Our objective is to advance toward a holistic understanding of the gut ecosystem and its functional and metabolic capacity in such patients, which is still lacking. Utilizing whole-metagenome shotgun sequencing, we performed a multi-faceted characterization of the gut multi-kingdom microbiome (i.e., bacteriome, mycobiome, and virome), microbial functions, and predicted serum and fecal metabolomes of fecal samples from 206 pSS patients and 355 non-pSS controls. We observed significant alterations in both the diversity and composition of the gut microbiome at the multi-kingdom level in pSS patients. Our findings underscore the gut microbiome's role in pSS pathogenesis, revealing a wealth of multi-faceted microbial biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets. A deeper understanding of these alterations may facilitate the development of improved diagnostic and treatment strategies for pSS.