Microbiome and metabolome study of SLE

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease that affects thousands of people worldwide. Recently, alterations in metabolism and gut microbiome have emerged as key regulators of SLE pathogenesis. However, it is not clear about the coordination of gut commensal bacteria and SLE metabolism. Here, by integrating 16S sequencing and metabolomics data, we characterized the gut microbiome and fecal and serum metabolome alterations in patients with SLE. Microbial diversity sequencing revealed significant dysbiosis of SLE patients with significantly changed beta diversity. The metabolomics data showed a dysregulated metabolic homeostasis and further highlighted the disruption of lipid metabolism. Integrated correlation analysis provided a link between the gut microbiome and lipid metabolism in patients with SLE, particularly according to regulating the conversion of primary bile acids to secondary bile acids. Overall, our results illustrate the perturbation of the gut microbiome and metabolome in SLE patients which may facilitate the development of new SLE interventions.