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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol.
Sec. Intestinal Microbiome
Volume 15 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1417403
This article is part of the Research Topic Decoding Microbiome Roles in Urinary Diseases: Impacts on Immune Cells and Molecular Signaling View all 3 articles
Characterization of the gut microbiota in urinary calculi patients with preoperative urinary tract infection
Provisionally accepted
Hao Chen Jing Yuan 
Hongmin Zhou Xiangcheng Zhan 
Yuchen Gao Bowen Chen Nuer Aihemaiti 
Xiao Xu Yunze Dong Shuai Liu 
Yanhua Chen Ding Liu 
Tiancheng Xie *
Yunfei Xu *- Department of Urology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
Background. Urinary tract infection is one of the most common comorbidities of urinary stones. Disorders of gut microbiota can affect various infectious diseases and the formation of the stones. Therefore, alterations in the gut bacteria profile may be a potential risk factor for the development of infections in patients with urinary tract stones.Methods. We conducted a retrospective study to analyse the association of urinary tract infections with gut microbiota and serum metabolism in patients with stones.Results. Patients with urolithiasis were predominantly in combination with diabetes mellitus (11.4% vs. 20%) and hypertension (36.4% vs. 50%). There were no statistically significant differences in haematological and urinary parameters. Compared to negative patients, IL-17A was significantly higher in the positive group (25.0 vs 21.1 pg/ml p = 0.038). The majority of pathogens detected in urine cultures were urease-negative bacteria, and urease-positive bacteria accounted for 15% of the total number of patients. We analysed the community composition of the two groups of patients and found a significant difference in their β-diversity (p = 0.025), suggesting that dysbiosis of the gut bacteria may be associated with the combination of urinary tract infections in urolithiasis. For identification of crucial bacteria, we found changes in the abundance of both Intestinibacter (p = 0.036) and Dialister (p = 0.039), and abundance of Intestinibacter was positively correlated with IFN-α, IL-12P70 (p<0.05), and especially IL-17A (p<0.01), which may result from differences in translational, ribosomal structural and biosynthetic functions in stone patients (p < 0.05).Conclusion. Urolithiasis with gut dysbiosis developed a higher incidence of urinary tract infections, which may be associated with the increasing of Intestinibacter and affect the expression of IL-17A by translational, ribosomal structural and biosynthetic function.
Keywords: Gut Microbiota, Urinary tract infection, Urolithiasis, Serum metabolome, 16S rRNA
Received: 14 Apr 2024; Accepted: 03 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Yuan, Zhou, Zhan, Gao, Chen, Aihemaiti, Xu, Dong, Liu, Chen, Liu, Xie and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Tiancheng Xie, Department of Urology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200072, Shanghai Municipality, China
Yunfei Xu, Department of Urology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200072, Shanghai Municipality, China
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