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British Journal of Gastroenterology
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Research article / Open Access
DOI:10.31488/bjg.1000146
Long COVID, Vaccine Injury and Gut Dysbiosis
Bryan Rinde1, Guanhui Bao1 , Amelia Goudzwaard1,2, Adriana C Vidal1,2, Sabine Hazan1,21.ProgenaBiome, LLC, Ventura, CA, USA
2.Microbiome Research Foundation, Ventura, CA, USA
*Corresponding author: Sabine Hazan, MD, ProgenaBiome, LLC, Ventura, CA, USA, Email: drhazan@progenabiome.com
Abstract
Introduction.COVID-19 infection can trigger a chronic condition known as Long COVID, which as of today, still affects millions of U.S. adults and children and remains a major public health concern. In this study, we investigated whether Long COVID patients have a distinct gut microbiome profile when compared to healthy controls. Similarly, with the prevalence of patients reporting Long COVID symptoms upon vaccination for SARS-CoV-2, we also compared the gut microbiome profiles of these patients with those of healthy controls.
Methods.
Fecal samples from 31 long COVID patients, 37 COVID-19 Vaccine-Injured, and 20 healthy controls were collected at ProgenaBiome laboratories. Microbiota composition was compared using shotgun methodology and next- generation sequencing (NGS) on the Illumina NextSeq with 500/550 High-Output Kits V.2.5 for 300 cycles. Data were processed through the OneCodex bioinformatics system to determine microbiota composition and relative abundances of top genera and phyla. A Mann-Whitney U test was used to evaluate statistical significance.
Results.
We found that Bacteroides was the dominating microbe in both Long COVID and SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine- Injured patients. Compared to healthy controls, Long COVID patients’ gut microbiome had more Bacteroides (p<0.001) and less Bifidobacterium (p<0.001) and Faecalibacterium (p=0.002). SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-injured patients had less Bifidobacterium (p<0.001) and Faecalibacterium (p=0.002), compared to healthy controls.
Conclusions.
These data suggest that gut dysbiosis may be associated with Long COVID and SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine- Injury. Future research is needed to confirm these findings. However, if confirmed, Long COVID and Vaccine-Injured patients may be treated for dysbiosis to alleviate symptoms.
Keywords:SARS-CoV-2, Long COVID, Vaccine-Injured, NGS, microbiome