Shotgun Metagenomics of 361 elderly women reveals gut microbiome change in bone mass loss

Bone mass loss contributes to the risk of bone fracture in elderly. Many factors including age, obesity, estrogen and diet, are associated with bone mass loss. Some mice transplantation experiments suggest that the intestinal microbiome might influence the bone mass by regulating the immune system. However, there has been little evidence from human studies, not to mention the metagenome-wide association studies (MWAS). We have recruited 361 Chinese elderly women to explore the influence of gut microbiome on bone health by metagenomic shotgun sequencing data. Our results indicate that some lifestyle habits, like tea-drinking, have beneficial effects on bone mass loss. In addition, the gut microbiome diversity mildly increases with bone mass loss which might be contributed by the raise of pathogenic genera, such as Escherichia. Moreover, we have detected some microbial species and modules as markers for bone mineral density (BMD). Functionally, we observed positive correlation between bone mass loss and some modules which might influence the BMD, saying pectin degradation, trehalose degration and arginine degration.