The Altered TBI Fecal Microbiome is Stable and is Functionally Distinct from Non-TBI Control Communities.

Patients that suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience chronic sequelae years after the injury. Working with participants from past clinical research, metatranscriptomic differences in the TBI-associated fecal microbiome (FMB) identified differently expressed bacterial genes and biochemical pathways in the TBI FMB compared to healthy control samples. Comparing the RNA profiles, TBI samples had ~1.5 fold more expressed genes with almost 700 differently expressed genes (DEG) mapped to over 100 bacterial species. DEGs assigned to pathways, led to the identification of 311 functions represented in the average TBI FMB profile while 264 were observed in the controls.