Irritable bowel syndrome-related differences in the fecal microbiome after the rifaximin treatment

Background. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic functional disorder, the development and maintenance of which may be linked, directly and indirectly, to intestinal dysbiosis. Aim. To study the potential interactions between IBS symptoms and the gut microbiome, including the relation to rifaximin treatment. Patients. We recruited 72 patients who met symptom-based Rome III diagnostic criteria for IBS, including 31 with IBS-D (diarrhea), 11 with IBS-C (constipation), and 30 with IBS-M (mixed constipation and diarrhea) and 30 healthy controls (HCs). All patients received 1200 mg/day rifaximin for 9 days, and stool samples were collected by each subject before and 10–12 weeks after treatment. Methods. Fecal microbiotic profiles were analyzed by sequencing 16S rDNA on the Personal Genome Machine (PGM) platform using Ion 16S Metagenomics Kits.