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Response of human gut microbiota under simulated microgravity

  • Applied Microbial and Cell Physiology
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate the influence of microgravity on human gut microbiota using 16S rRNA gene sequencing in vitro. The diamagnetic material magnetic levitation method was used to simulate weightless environment. The human gut microbiota was cultured under two different conditions: normal gravity (1 g), and simulated microgravity (0 g), which showed that both the richness (P = 0.04) and diversity (P = 0.0002) of human gut microbiota were significantly altered. As compared to the normal gravity, the simulated microgravity significantly reduced abundance of bacteria related to anti-inflammatory effects, such as Subdoligranulum, Faecalibacterium, Fusicatenibacter, Butyricicoccus, and Lachnospiraceae-NK4A136-0 group (P < 0.05), while significantly increased that of Alistipes and Eubacterium-Ventriosum-group (P < 0.05). Moreover, the Spearman’s correlation analysis showed that there were more significantly correlated species (|r|≥ 0.5, P < 0.05) in normal gravity than that in the simulated microgravity. KEGG pathway analysis revealed that the microgravity significantly (P < 0.05) affected the metabolism of gut microbiota, such as the metabolism of pyrimidine, fatty acids, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate, peptidoglycan biosynthesis, and carbon fixation in photosynthetic organisms. These results suggested that the exposure to a microgravity environment might induce disturbances in human gut microbiota.

Key points

• Using 16sRNA gene sequencing technology, it was found that magnetic levitation-simulated microgravity had varying degrees of influence on the abundance, diversity, species correlation, and KEGG pathways of human intestinal microbes.

• Digital PCR can improve the detection rate of microorganisms with low abundance.

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Data availability

All relevant data for this study are available from the corresponding authors.

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Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Program No. 2018YFF01012104) and Fund of Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymers Design and Application in Soochow University (Program No. KJS2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, 127 Youyi West Road, Xi’an, 710072, Shaanxi, China

    Yijuan Han, Dongyan Shao, Cuicui Han, Qingsheng Huang & Wen Zhao

Authors
  1. Yijuan Han
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  2. Dongyan Shao
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  3. Cuicui Han
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  4. Qingsheng Huang
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  5. Wen Zhao
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Contributions

Conceptualization, HQS and ZW; funding acquisition, ZW; investigation, HYJ and HCC; methodology, SDY and HCC; writing—original draft, HYJ and SDY; writing—review and editing, HQS and ZW. HQS and ZW share corresponding authorship.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qingsheng Huang or Wen Zhao.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Han, Y., Shao, D., Han, C. et al. Response of human gut microbiota under simulated microgravity. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 106, 5221–5231 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12045-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-022-12045-3

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