%0 Journal Article
%A Sánchez Conde, Matilde
%A Alba Rubio, Claudio
%A Castro Navarro, Irma
%A Dronda, Fernando
%A Ramírez, Margarita
%A Arroyo Rodríguez, Rebeca
%A Moreno Guillén, Santiago
%A Rodríguez Gómez, Juan Miguel
%A Brañas Baztán, Fátima Beatriz
%T Comparison of the Fecal Bacteriome of HIV-Positive and HIV-Negative Older Adults
%D 2023
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/104545
%X HIV infection is considered a scenario of accelerated aging. Previous studies have suggested a link between aging, frailty, and gut dysbiosis, but there is a knowledge gap regarding the HIV population. Our objective was to compare the fecal bacteriome of older people with HIV (PWH) and non-HIV controls, and to assess potential links between gut dysbiosis and frailty. A total of 36 fecal samples (24 from PWH and 12 from non-HIV controls) were submitted to a metataxonomic analysis targeting the V3–V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene. High-quality reads were assembled and classified into operational taxonomic units. Alpha diversity, assessed using the Shannon index, was higher in the control group than in the HIV group (p < 0.05). The relative abundance of the genus Blautia was higher in the HIV group (p < 0.001). The presence of Blautia was also higher in PWH with depression (p = 0.004), whereas the opposite was observed for the genus Bifidobacterium (p = 0.004). Our study shows shifts in the composition of the PWH bacteriome when compared to that of healthy controls. To our knowledge, this is the first study suggesting a potential link between depression and gut dysbiosis in the HIV population.
%~