A Novel Scheme for Non-Invasive Gut Bioinformation Acquisition with MSCE

Background: Intestinal flora and metabolites have been reported to be associate with the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of important diseases. In recent years, capsule endoscope has been used to visualize the entire gastrointestinal tract, however, it lacks the capability of intestinal bioinformation sampling. Therefore, we aimed to develop a magnetically controlled sampling capsule endoscope (MSCE) to acquire digestive bioinformation for disease diagnosing and evaluating. Methods: We established an antibiotics-induced disease model in pigs by gavage feeding antibiotics for 10 days. Endoscope and MSCE were both used for sampling jejunum and ileum juice in control group and antibiotics-induced diarrhea group. The intestinal juice was then applied to microbiome profiling and metabolomics profiling. Findings: The newly developed MSCE was capable for intestinal juice sampling. The learning curve was short for operators that more than 50 times of sampling was enough to significantly elevate the success rate from 70% to 96% (p<0·05). Additionally, the MSCE had well sealing characteristics with no contamination after sampling. The microbiome profiling and metabolomics profiling results showed that MSCE sampling and endoscope sampling did not influence the intestinal bioinformation no matter in which intestinal regions or disease models. Furthermore, MSCE was capable for accurately reflecting the disease related gut microbiota and metabolites. Interpretation: We present a newly developed MSCE which can non-invasively and accurately sample intestinal bioinformation under a direct visual in different disease models. This new technique might open a new door for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. Funding Statement: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81770539, 81330014, 81572428, 81272656, 81974068 and 81900580), and the National key research and development program of China (No. 2017YFC0110003). Declaration of Interests: All authors declare no competing interests. Ethics Approval Statement: All animal care and experimental procedures were approved by the Animal Care Ministry of Health and were performed in accordance with national and EU guidelines for the handling and use of experimental animals. Animal studies were reported in compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines.