title: Fecal microbiota diversity in survivors of adolescent/young adult Hodgkin lymphoma: a study of twins.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Adolescent/young adult Hodgkin lymphoma (AYAHL) survivors report fewer exposures to infections during childhood compared with controls, and they have functional lymphocyte aberrations. The gut microbiota plays a central role in immunity.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated whether fecal microbial diversity differed between 13 AYAHL survivors and their unaffected co-twin controls. Pyrosequencing of fecal bacterial 16S rRNA amplicons yielded 252 943 edited reads that were assigned to species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and standardised for sequencing depth by random sampling. Microbial diversity was compared within vs between twin pairs and by case-control status.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The number of unique OTUs was more similar within twin pairs compared with randomly paired participants (P=0.0004). The AYAHL cases had fewer unique OTUs compared with their co-twin controls (338 vs 369, P=0.015); this difference was not significant (169 vs 183, P=0.10) when restricted to abundant OTUs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this small study, AYAHL survivors appear to have a deficit of rare gut microbes. Further work is needed to determine if reduced microbial diversity is a consequence of the disease, its treatment, or a particularly hygienic environment.
authors: Department of Preventive Medicine, USC Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90089-9175, USA.
authors: W
authors: W
authors: Cozen
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Yu
authors: M H
authors: MH
authors: Gail
authors: V K
authors: VK
authors: Ridaura
authors: B N
authors: BN
authors: Nathwani
authors: A E
authors: AE
authors: Hwang
authors: A S
authors: AS
authors: Hamilton
authors: T M
authors: TM
authors: Mack
authors: J I
authors: JI
authors: Gordon
authors: J J
authors: JJ
authors: Goedert
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D006689:Hodgkin Disease / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D054892:Metagenome; D017741:Survivors; D055815:Young Adult