Systematic Microbiome Dysbiosis Is Associated with IgA Nephropathy

Abstract

This study provides microbial profiles of IgAN across multiple niches and underlines the potential of these biomarkers as promising, noninvasive tools with which to differentiate IgAN patients for clinical applications. IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is reportedly associated with microbial dysbiosis. However, the microbiome dysregulation of IgAN patients across multiple niches remains unclear. To gain a systematic understanding of microbial dysbiosis, we conducted large-scale 16S rRNA gene sequencing in IgAN patients and healthy volunteers across 1,732 oral, pharynx, gut, and urine samples. We observed a niche-specific increase of several opportunistic pathogens, including Bergeyella and Capnocytophaga in the oral and pharynx, whereas some beneficial commensals decreased in IgAN patients. Similar alterations were also observed in the early versus advanced stage of chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. Moreover, Bergeyella, Capnocytophaga , and Comamonas in the oral and pharynx were positively associated with creatinine and urea, indicating renal lesions. Random forest classifiers were developed by using the microbial abundance to predict IgAN, achieving an optimal accuracy of 0.879 in the discovery phase and 0.780 in the validation phase. IMPORTANCE This study provides microbial profiles of IgAN across multiple niches and underlines the potential of these biomarkers as promising, noninvasive tools with which to differentiate IgAN patients for clinical applications.