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. 2021 Aug 12;59(10):941–948. doi: 10.1007/s12275-021-1206-5

Linking the gut microbiota to persistent symptoms in survivors of COVID-19 after discharge

Yaya Zhou 1,#, Jianchu Zhang 1,#, Dongmei Zhang 1, Wan-Li Ma 1,✉, Xiaorong Wang 1,✉
PMCID: PMC8356893  PMID: 34382150

Abstract

Several follow-up studies have found that COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) patients had persistent symptoms after discharge. Gut microbiota play an important role in human health and immune responses. Therefore, this study investigated the gut microbiota of recovered COVID-19 patients and the correlations between gut microbiota and persistent symptoms after discharge. Stool samples were collected from 15 recovered healthcare workers (HCWs) with COVID-19 at three months after discharge, in addition, stool samples were collected from 14 healthy controls (HCs) to perform 16S rRNA gene sequencing between May and July 2020. Compared with HCs, recovered HCWs had reduced bacterial diversity at three months after discharge, with a significantly higher relative abundance of opportunistic pathogens, and a significantly lower relative abundance of beneficial bacteria. In addition, Escherichia unclassified was positively correlated with persistent symptoms at three months after discharge, including fatigue (r = 0.567, p = 0.028), chest tightness after activity (r = 0.687, p = 0.005), and myalgia (r = 0.523, p = 0.045). Intestinibacter bartlettii was positively correlated with anorexia (r = 0.629, p = 0.012) and fatigue (r = 0.545, p = 0.036). However, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii was negatively correlated with chest tightness after activity (r = -0.591, p = 0.02), and Intestinimonas butyriciproducens was negatively correlated with cough (r = -0.635, p = 0.011). In conclusion, the gut microbiota of recovered HCWs with COVID-19 at three months after discharge was different from that of HCs, and altered gut microbiota was correlated with persistent symptoms after discharge, highlighting that gut microbiota may play an important role in the recovery of patients with COVID-19.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/s12275-021-1206-5 and is accessible for authorized users.

Keywords: COVID-19, recovered healthcare workers, gut microbiota, symptoms after discharge

Electronic supplementary material

12275_2021_1206_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx (94.2KB, xlsx)

Supplementary material, approximately 94.2 KB.

Acknowledgements

This study gratefully acknowledges the patients who participated in the research. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2020kfyXGYJ034) and (No. 2020kfyXGYJ009).

Availability of Data and Materials

The sequences from our study were deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (PRJNA736160).

Conflict of Interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical Statement The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Wuhan Union Hospital (2020-0149-02). All participants provided written informed consent prior to participation.

Footnotes

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://www.springerlink.com/content/120956.

These authors contributed equally to this work.

Contributor Information

Wan-Li Ma, Email: whmawl@aliyun.com.

Xiaorong Wang, Email: rong-100@163.com.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

12275_2021_1206_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx (94.2KB, xlsx)

Supplementary material, approximately 94.2 KB.

Data Availability Statement

The sequences from our study were deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (PRJNA736160).

Articles from Journal of Microbiology (Seoul, Korea) are provided here courtesy of Nature Publishing Group

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