title: Correlations of fecal bacterial communities with age and living region for the elderly living in Bama, Guangxi, China.
abstract: Bama County (Guangxi, China) is famous for its longevous population. In this study, intestinal microflora of 17 healthy elderly subjects of different ages and from different regions (rural and urban) in Bama, were analyzed by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Significant effects of age and living region on the whole intestinal bacterial communities were observed by redundancy analysis (RDA). A total of 11 bacterial strains that were correlated with age and living region were identified using a t-value biplot combined with band sequencing. Four bacterial strains were correlated with both age and living region of the elderly in Bama. Two Bacteroides strains and one Ruminococcaceae strain were abundant in the rural, younger elderly; conversely, one Desulfovibrio strain was high in the urban, older elderly. Another Bacteroidetes strain was only correlated with the participant's age, and its abundance increased with the age of the elderly. The richness of one Clostridium sordellii strain, which was only correlated with the elderly living region, was high in the urban elderly. The study also found five other novel bacterial strains that were correlated with the age or living region of the elderly in Bama. These results expand our understanding of age- and region-effects on the intestinal microflora of the elderly and raise the possibility of developing probiotics originating from centenarians.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Functional Dairy, College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P R China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Xuewei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Xiaoying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jingli
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yanling
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.forename: Fazheng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001419:Bacteria / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D044822:Biodiversity; D002681:China; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D058645:Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial