The correlation of gut microbiota and serum metabolites with Sasang constitution

As one of the unique individualization systems in traditional oriental medicine, the Sasang constitution medicine (SCM) has been an important tool to diagnose and treat patient for traditional oriental medical doctors. However, due to relative lack of scientific evidences, the clinical application of SCM into conventional medical system is interfered. To provide scientific evidences for Sasang constitutions, system biology approach including gut microbiome and host metabolites analysis using recent advancement of techniques were performed in this study. To assess the correlation of gut microbiota and serum metabolites with Sasang constitutions, we analyzed 60 subjects who were divided into 3 Sasang constitutions (So-Yang, So-Eum, and Tae-Eum) based on the Sasang Constitution Diagnosis System. Gut microbiota of subjects were analyzed with 16S rRNA gene based pyrosequencing, and serum metabolites were determined by LC-MS analysis. The relative abundance of Firmicutes was higher in Tae-Eum than So-Yang and So-Eum, whereas Bacteroidetes were higher in So-Yang and So-Eum than Tae-Eum group. Lysophosphatidylcholins (lysoPC) was detected higher in TE than SE group in metabolite analysis. The clinical characteristics were also measured to explore the correlation with gut microbiota, and significant associations between measurements (body weight, BMI, waist circumference, fat mass, systolic, insulin, and CRP) and gut microbiota were found. The correlation between serum metabolites and gut microbiota in Sasang constitutions was analyzed by the Canonical correspondence analysis. Different compositions of gut microbiota were correlated with different metabolites according to Sasang constitutions. These results provide that the interaction between gut microbiota and host metabolites can be associated with the determination of constitutions.