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Gut microbiota community and metabolic profiles in direct total cavopulmonary connection and Fontan circulation: a cross-sectional study in the single center

Kaiyu Wang, Lin-Jiang Han, Jian-Rui Ma, Yu-Shen Fang, Yin-Ru He, Xiao-Bing Liu, Shu-Sheng Wen, Jian Zhuang et al.

Frontiers in Microbiology, 2025

45 participants · 1 citation

Abstract

Background This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the direct total cavopulmonary connection (dTCPC) procedure on the gut microbiome and metabolome. It also sought to elucidate the features of the gut microbiota community and metabolic profiles in Fontan circulation. Methods We randomly recruited 45 participants above 14 years old undergoing Fontan procedure by typical extracardiac conduit (TCPC group, n = 15), direct total cavopulmonary connection (dTCPC group, n = 16) procedure and healthy control (control group, n = 14) in our institution between May 2023 and October 2023. 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and untargeted metabolites measurement were performed on their fecal sample. Results The four alpha diversity indexes showed no statistical significance between the dTCPC and TCPC groups (p > 0.05). Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) followed by permutation testing indicated an overfitting effect in the model between the dTCPC and TCPC groups. We observed significant differences in the Chao1 index (p = 0.0236), the ACE index (p = 0.0236), and the unweighted beta diversity (p = 0.0099) between the Fontan group and healthy control group. Strains of Fusobacterium were significantly overrepresented in the Fontan group [with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) scores exceeding (log10) >3]. Functional enrichment analysis revealed a significant overrepresentation of several metabolic pathways. These pathways predominantly included those related to…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause. Reported size: 45 participants or records.

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