Dysbiosis of intestinal and oral microbiota in pediatric primary sclerosing cholangitis

Objectives: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is known to be complicated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in children, and dysbiosis of the microbiota is one theory of its pathogenesis. We investigated the intestinal and oral microbiota of the pediatric PSC patients, using 454 pyrosequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA genes with an improved quantitative accuracy for evaluation of the bacterial composition.Methods: 23 patients (14 males, 9 females) whose age was 5-15 (median 9) years old at the time of diagnosis were included in the study. Ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn's disease (CD) and non-specific enteritis were 14 (61%), 1 (4%) and 8 (35%) cases, respectively. After purifying the bacterial DNA of their feces and saliva, it was compared based on the molecular phylogeny of the 16S rDNA V1-V2 region (UniFrac analysis).Results: The nubers of OTUs (operational taxonomic units) of PSC intestinal and oral microbiota were less than those of healthy controls, which suggests decreasing diversity of species in the microbiota. We used UniFrac to determine which of the microbial communitites represented by the fecal and oral samples of PSC patients and healthy controls were significantly different. Conclusion: These suggest that dysbiosis of the intestinal and oral microbiota has some role in the pathogenesis of PSC in children.