Observation of the Gut Microbiota Profile in C57BL/6 Mice Induced by ANKA Infection.

The genus of parasites can cause malaria, which is a prevalent infectious disease worldwide, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. C57BL/6 mice infected with ANKA (PbA) will suffer from experimental cerebral malaria (ECM). However, the gut microbiota in C57BL/6 mice has rarely been investigated, especially regarding changes in the intestinal environment caused by infectious parasites. ANKA-infected (PbA group) and uninfected C57BL/6 (Ctrl group) mice were used in this study. C57BL/6 mice were infected with PbA intraperitoneal injection of 1 × 10 infected red blood cells. Fecal samples of two groups were collected. The microbiota of feces obtained from both uninfected and infected mice was characterized by targeting the V4 region of the 16S rRNA through the Illumina MiSeq platform. The variations in the total gut microbiota composition were determined based on alpha and beta diversity analyses of 16S rRNA sequencing. The raw sequences from all samples were generated and clustered using ≥ 97% sequence identity into many microbial operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The typical microbiota composition in the gut was dominated by , , , and at the phylum level. and were considerably decreased after PbA infection compared with the control group (Ctrl), while and were increased substantially after PbA infection compared with Ctrl. The alpha diversity index showed that the observed OTU number was increased in the PbA group compared with the Ctrl group. Moreover, the discreteness of the beta diversity revealed that the PbA group samples had a higher number of OTUs than the Ctrl group. LEfSe analysis revealed that several potential bacterial biomarkers were clearly related to the PbA-infected mice at the phylogenetic level. Several bacterial genera, such as , , and , were overrepresented in the PbAinfected fecal microbiota. Meanwhile, a method similar to gene coexpression network construction was used to generate the OTU co-abundance units. These results indicated that ANKA infection could alter the gut microbiota composition of C57BL/6 mice. In addition, potential biomarkers should offer insight into malaria pathogenesis and antimalarial drug and malaria vaccine studies.