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Gulf War Illness Is Associated with Host Gut Microbiome Dysbiosis and Is Linked to Altered Species Abundance in Veterans from the BBRAIN Cohort

Ayushi Trivedi, Dipro Bose, Kelly Moffat, Elisabeth Pearson, Dana Walsh, Devra Cohen, Jonathan Skupsky, Linda Chao, Julia Golier, Patricia Janulewicz, Kimberly Sullivan, Maxine Krengel, Ashok Tuteja, Nancy Klimas and Saurabh Chatterjee ()
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Ayushi Trivedi: Environmental Health and Disease Laboratory, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Program in Public Health, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Dipro Bose: Environmental Health and Disease Laboratory, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Program in Public Health, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Kelly Moffat: CosmosID, Germantown, MD 20874, USA
Elisabeth Pearson: CosmosID, Germantown, MD 20874, USA
Dana Walsh: CosmosID, Germantown, MD 20874, USA
Devra Cohen: Miami VA Healthcare System, Miami, FL 33125, USA
Jonathan Skupsky: VA Research and Development, VA Long Beach Health Care, Long Beach, CA 90822, USA
Linda Chao: San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA
Julia Golier: J. Peters VA Medical Center, Bronx, NY 10468, USA
Patricia Janulewicz: Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany St. T4W, Boston, MA 02130, USA
Kimberly Sullivan: Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany St. T4W, Boston, MA 02130, USA
Maxine Krengel: Department of Neurology, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02130, USA
Ashok Tuteja: Division of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84132, USA
Nancy Klimas: Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314, USA
Saurabh Chatterjee: Environmental Health and Disease Laboratory, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Program in Public Health, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 8, 1-22

Abstract: Gulf War Illness (GWI) is a debilitating condition marked by chronic fatigue, cognitive problems, pain, and gastrointestinal (GI) complaints in veterans who were deployed to the 1990–1991 Gulf War. Fatigue, GI complaints, and other chronic symptoms continue to persist more than 30 years post-deployment. Several potential mechanisms for the persistent illness have been identified and our prior pilot study linked an altered gut microbiome with the disorder. This study further validates and builds on our prior preliminary findings of host gut microbiome dysbiosis in veterans with GWI. Using stool samples and Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI) data from 89 GW veteran participants (63 GWI cases and 26 controls) from the Boston biorepository, recruitment, and integrative network (BBRAIN) for Gulf War Illness, we found that the host gut bacterial signature of veterans with GWI showed significantly different Bray–Curtis beta diversity than control veterans. Specifically, a higher Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio, decrease in Akkermansia sp., Bacteroides thetaiotamicron , Bacteroides fragilis , and Lachnospiraceae genera and increase in Blautia , Streptococcus , Klebsiella , and Clostridium genera, that are associated with gut, immune, and brain health, were shown. Further, using MaAsLin and Boruta algorithms, Coprococcus and Eisenbergiella were identified as important predictors of GWI with an area under the curve ROC predictive value of 74.8%. Higher self-reported MFI scores in veterans with GWI were also significantly associated with an altered gut bacterial diversity and species abundance of Lachnospiraceae and Blautia . These results suggest potential therapeutic targets for veterans with GWI that target the gut microbiome and specific symptoms of the illness.

Keywords: Gulf War Illness; veteran; bacteriome; chronic fatigue; bacterial metabolism; Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory; Lachnospiraceae; Coprococcus; Eisenbergiella (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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