Characteristic metabolic and microbial profiles in acute ischemic stroke patients with phlegm-heat pattern

Objective: To explore the characteristics of plasma metabolites, feces gut microbiota and the crosstalk between gut microbiota and host metabolism in patients with acute ischemic stroke and phlegm-heat pattern (AIS-PHP). Methods: The metabolic and microbiome profiles of 20 AIS-PHP patients and 20 healthy controls (HCs) were analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based metabolomics and 16s rDNA sequencing, respectively. The covariation between LC-MS/MS-based metabolite data and 16s rDNA sequence data was presented. Results: Distinct alterations in the plasma metabolic phenotype of AIS-PHP patients were found, in which 16 metabolites differed significantly between the AIS-PHP patients and the HCs. These metabolites represented 17 different metabolic pathways, including amino acid metabolism, lipid metabolism, and nucleotide metabolism. Additionally, significant alterations of gut microbiota composition and taxon were revealed at the phylum level between the AIS-PHP patients and the HCs. In AIS-PHP, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria dominated. Moreover, some microbes that differed between the 2 groups manifested a sole association with certain metabolites, such as the connection between Bacteroides and inosine and between Lachnospiraceae_unclassified and hypoxanthine. Conclusion: The present study preliminarily investigated the metabolomic and gut microbiome characteristics of AIS-PHP patient indicators. The link between metabolic and microbial dysbiosis in AIS-PHP sheds new light on the function of gut microbiota and associated metabolomics in the pathogenesis of the disease.