The influence and relationship of dysbiosis in the urinary microbiota on patients with urolithiasis

Abstract Background Urolithiasis is a disease with high prevalence and recurrence rate. There are various risk factors impacting on stone formation including intestinal micorbiome. This study aims to investigate the relationship between urine microbiota with urolithiasis. Methods We collected mid-stream voided urine samples from urolithiasis patients and control participants and stored them in a freezer at -80°C. All enrolled participants were requested to provide information about their clinical characteristics. Each step of the procedure, including the extraction of the genomic DNA from the urine samples; the amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR); PCR product quantification, mixing, and purification; DNA library preparation; and sequencing was performed with quality control (QC) measures. Alpha diversity was indicative of the species complexity within individual urine samples, and beta diversity analysis was used to evaluate the differences among the samples in terms of species complexity. Results We enrolled 28 urolithiasis patients and 59 control participants who reported no recent antibiotic usage. In the beta diversity analysis, there was a significant difference between the microbiota in the samples of the urolithiasis and control groups according to ANOSIM statistical analysis. (P = 0.004). On comparing the groups, it showed Alcaligenes, Bacteroides, Blautia, Ruminococcaceae_UCG, Cutibacterium, Alistipes, Lachnoclostridium present more significant in control group than urolithiasis patients. Conclusions Our current study shows that dysbiosis of urine microbiota may be related to the development of urolithiasis. Further research targeting specific microbes to identify their role in the development of diseases is necessary and might provide novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic options.