Gut microbiome and intestinal inflammation in preclinical stages of rheumatoid arthritis.

Background: Faecal , and other microbes, have been associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and preclinical RA. We have performed a quantitative microbiome profiling study in preclinical stages of RA.

Methods: First-degree relatives of patients with RA (RA-FDRs) from the SCREEN-RA cohort were categorised into four groups: controls, healthy asymptomatic RA-FDRs; high genetic risk, asymptomatic RA-FDRs with two copies of the shared epitope; autoimmunity, asymptomatic RA-FDRs with RA-associated autoimmunity; and symptomatic, clinically suspect arthralgias or untreated new-onset RA.

sp. nov., a commensal spirochaete isolated from human faeces.

A Gram-stain-negative, obligatory anaerobic spirochaete (RCC2812) was isolated from a faecal sample obtained from an individual residing in a remote Amazonian community in Peru. The bacterium showed highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the pig intestinal spirochete (89.48 %).

LotuS: an efficient and user-friendly OTU processing pipeline.

Background: 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) amplicon sequencing is frequently used to analyse the structure of bacterial communities from oceans to the human microbiota. However, computational power is still a major bottleneck in the analysis of continuously enlarging metagenomic data sets. Analysis is further complicated by the technical complexity of current bioinformatics tools.