Previous studies have shown that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be partly due to differences in the composition of the intestinal flora.
But on November 12, a paper published in Cell Press, a journal called Cell ("Cell"), suggested that this connection may actually be the other way around: the flora found in the intestines of children with autism.
"A lot of people are interested in the role of gut microbes in autism, but there is not a lot of conclusive evidence
In the past 10 years, with the development of next-generation gut microbial sequencing technology, microbiome analysis has become more automated and less time-consuming.
In the study, the researchers analyzed the stool samples of 247 children between the ages of 2 and 17
The researchers analyzed the samples through metagenomic sequencing, which looked at the entire genome of the microbial species, rather than short genetic barcodes
"In the analysis, we also carefully considered diet, age and gender
Based on the analysis, the researchers found that there is limited evidence for autism and the microbiome directly related, but autism is highly correlated with diet, and the diagnosis of autism is related to dietary diversity and poor diet quality
"In general, these data support a very simple and intuitive model that autism-related characteristics promote restrictive diets,
The researchers acknowledge that the current work has several limitations
"We hope this discovery will encourage others in the autism research community to regularly collect metadata in omics research to explain important but often underestimated potential confounding factors, such as diet
The researchers plan to generate new data in a larger sample to replicate their findings
Related paper information: http://dx.
http://dx.
doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cell.
2021.
10.
015
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