TY - JOUR T1 - Ageing trajectory of the gut microbiota is associated with metabolic diseases in a chronological age-dependent manner JF - Gut JO - Gut DO - 10.1136/gutjnl-2022-328034 SP - gutjnl-2022-328034 AU - JingXiang Fu AU - Wen Qiu AU - Huimin Zheng AU - Cancan Qi AU - Shixian Hu AU - Wei Wu AU - Huidi Wang AU - Guangyan Wu AU - Peihua Cao AU - Zhenchao Ma AU - Chao Zheng AU - Wen-Jun Ma AU - Hong-Wei Zhou AU - Yan He Y1 - 2022/09/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/08/gutjnl-2022-328034.abstract N2 - We read with interest the recent article by Ng et al. (Gut, 2022; 71:910–8), who reported inhibition of the gut microbiota trajectory in patients with autism spectrum disorder.1 Similarly, the human gut microbiota ages in adults.2 3 Transplantation of gut microbes from elderly hosts, compared with their younger counterparts, deteriorates recipients’ age-related metabolic alternations.4 5 However, the gut microbiota in humans could differ in its pace of ageing, namely, accelerated or delayed microbiota ageing, even among those with similar chronological ages (figure 1A); this process is analogous to biological ageing.6 Therefore, we wondered whether the gut microbiota ageing trajectory could be used as a biomarker for metabolic diseases in adults. We analysed the gut microbiota compositions of 6376 participants of a population-level survey7 with Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME),8 among whom the median chronological age of the healthy participants is 43 (IQR, 31–45, online supplemental table S1). A random forest algorithm was applied to the data of 1083 healthy individuals to model gut microbiota ageing in relation to chronological age. The model was then applied to subjects with metabolic diseases, matching healthy individuals by chronological age. See the online supplemental file 1 for additional information.Supplementary data[gutjnl-2022-328034supp001.pdf]Figure 1 Gut microbiome ageing patterns in participants with metabolic diseases and their healthy counterparts. (A) Three different patterns of ageing trajectories of the gut microbiota. (B–D) Gut microbiota ageing trajectory in patients … ER -