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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microorganisms in Vertebrate Digestive Systems
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1470037

Gut microbiota profiling in injection drug users with and without HIV-1 infection in Puerto Rico

Provisionally accepted
Nirosh Aluthge Nirosh Aluthge 1Seidu Adams Seidu Adams 1Carmen A Davila Carmen A Davila 1Nova R Gocchi Carrasco Nova R Gocchi Carrasco 1Kathy Chiou Kathy Chiou 1Roberto Abadie Roberto Abadie 2Sydney J Bennett Sydney J Bennett 1Kirk Dombrowski Kirk Dombrowski 3Angel M Major Angel M Major 4Aníbal Valentín-Acevedo Aníbal Valentín-Acevedo 4John T West John T West 5Charles Wood Charles Wood 5Samodha Charaka Fernando Samodha Charaka Fernando 1*
  • 1 University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States
  • 2 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States
  • 3 University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States
  • 4 Universidad Central del Caribe, Bayamon, Puerto Rico
  • 5 Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The full extent of interactions between HIV infection, injection drug use, and the human microbiome is poorly understood. In this study, we investigated microbiomes of HIV-positive and negative individuals, both drug-injecting and non-injecting, to identify bacterial community changes in response to HIV and drug use. We utilized a well-established cohort of people who inject drugs in Puerto Rico, a region with historically high levels of injection drug use and an HIV incidence rate disproportionately associated with drug use. Using amplicon-based 16S rDNA sequencing, we identified amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) that demonstrated significant differences in microbial community composition based on HIV status and drug use.Our results showed that the HIV-positive group had a higher abundance of ASVs belonging to the genera Prevotella, Alloprevotella, Sutterella, Megasphaera, Fusobacterium, and Mitsuokella.In contrast, Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus ASVs were more abundant in injectors compared to non-injectors. When examining the effect of drug use on the gut microbiome in both HIVinfected and non-infected patients, we found that multiple drug use significantly affected the microbial community composition. Differential analysis of bacterial taxa revealed an enrichment of Bifidobacterium spp., Faecalibacterium spp., and Lactobacillus spp. in the multiple druginjecting group. Conversely, in the non-injecting group, Parabacteroides spp., Prevotella spp., Paraprevotella spp., Sutterella spp., and Lachnoclostridium spp. were more abundant compared to the multiple drug-injecting group. Our findings provide detailed insights into ASV-level changes in the microbiome in response to HIV and drug use, suggesting that the effect of HIV status and drug injection may have different effects on microbiome composition and in modulating gut bacterial populations.

    Keywords: microbiome, 16S rDNA, HIV, Drug use, bacterial community composition

    Received: 24 Jul 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Aluthge, Adams, Davila, Gocchi Carrasco, Chiou, Abadie, Bennett, Dombrowski, Major, Valentín-Acevedo, West, Wood and Fernando. 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: Samodha Charaka Fernando, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, United States

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