The Relationship between Microbiota and Polyamine Concentration in the Human Intestine: A Pilot Study

The fecal microbiota of 10 hospitalized elderly subjects and 14 healthy adults were analyzed by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis using Hha I, Msp I, Hae III, and Alu I, as well as fecal polyamine (PA) concentration. The T-RFLP profiles of the fecal microbiota of the subjects were roughly divided into 2 clusters-I (9 out of 11 were derived from hospitalized elderly subjects) and II (12 out of 13 were derived from healthy adults). The average concentration of putrescine in Cluster II was 5.8 times higher than that of putrescine in Cluster I (P=0.0015). Using a phylogenetic assignment database for T-RFLP analysis of human colonic microbiota, the terminal-restriction fragments (T-RFs) characteristically detected in the case of subjects with high fecal PA concentration were predicted to be derived from bacterial species and phylotypes belonging to Clostridium subcluster XIVa, particularly including Clostridium xylanolyticum, Clostridium saccharolyticum, the uncultured human intestinal bacterium clone JW1H4 (a relative of Desulfotomaculum guttoideum), Roseburia intestinalis, the uncultured bacterium clone 41F10 (a relative of Eubacterium ramulus), Roseburia cecicola, Ruminococcus obeum and its relatives. From these results, we concluded that fecal microbiota may be linked with fecal PA concentration and that some bacterial species belonging to Clostridium subcluster XIVa may play a major role in the control of intestinal PA concentration in humans.