In silico Identification of Metagenomic Signature Describing Neurometabolic Potential of Normal Human Gut Microbiota

Abstract

A great amount of attention has been paid to the study of the microbiota–gut–brain axis in recent years. Gut microbiota can affect development and functioning of the brain through synthesis of various neuroactive metabolites, such as neurotransmitters, hormones, and other compounds. In the present study, the presence and distribution are analyzed for the genes controlling the synthesis of enzymes involved in production of neuroactive compounds in 147 gut metagenomes of healthy people from Human Microbiome Project database and synthetic metagenome artificially assembled from 508 bacterial genomes. The analysis is conducted using the collected catalog of orthologs for 17 key enzymes and an algorithm developed for their search. As a result of analyses of genomic and metagenomic data of healthy people, seven bacterial genera containing the greatest number of enzyme genes and 8 enzymes out of 17 that are observed the most frequently are chosen. It is assumed that the selected “core” genera and enzymes form a metagenomic signature reflecting the neurometabolic potential of the human intestinal microbiota in the norm.