Intestinal microbiota of the patients with Hirschsprung’s disease Raw sequence reads

Hirschsprung-associated enterocolitis (HAEC) is a life-threatening complication of Hirschsprung’s disease (HD). Despite the pathological mechanisms are still unclear, studies have shown that HAEC has close relationship with intestinal microbiota disturbance. This study aimed to investigate the characterization of the intestinal microbiome of HD with or without enterocolitis. During routine or emergency surgery we collected 35 intestinal content samples from five patients with HAEC and eight HD patients, including three HD patients with a history of enterocolitis (HAEC remission, HAEC-R). Using Illumina-MiSeq high-throughput sequencing, we sequenced the V4 region of bacterial 16S rRNA, and operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were defined by 97% sequence similarity. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) of weighted UniFrac distances was performed to compare the diversity of each intestinal microbiome sample. The microbiota differed significantly between the HD patients (characterized by Bacteroidetes) and HAEC patients (characterized by Proteobacteria), and the microbiota of HAEC-R patients was more similar to that of HAEC patients. We also observed that specimens from different intestinal sites in each HD patient differed significantly, whilst specimens from different intestinal sites in each HAEC and HAEC-R patients were more similar. In conclusion, the microbiome pattern of HAEC-R patients was more similar to that of HAEC patients than HD patients. HD patients have a relatively distinct, more stable community than HAEC and HAEC-R patients, suggesting that enterocolitis may either be caused by or result in a disruption of the patient’s uniquely adapted intestinal flora. The intestinal microbiota associated with enterocolitis may persist following resolution of symptoms, and could be implicated in the symptom recurrence.