title: Spatial heterogeneity and co-occurrence patterns of human mucosal-associated intestinal microbiota.
abstract: Human gut microbiota shows high inter-subject variations, but the actual spatial distribution and co-occurrence patterns of gut mucosa microbiota that occur within a healthy human instestinal tract remain poorly understood. In this study, we illustrated a model of this mucosa bacterial communities' biogeography, based on the largest data set so far, obtained via 454-pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S rDNAs associated with 77 matched biopsy tissue samples taken from terminal ileum, ileocecal valve, ascending colon, transverse colon, descending colon, sigmoid colon and rectum of 11 healthy adult subjects. Borrowing from macro-ecology, we used both Taylor's power law analysis and phylogeny-based beta-diversity metrics to uncover a highly heterogeneous distribution pattern of mucosa microbial inhabitants along the length of the intestinal tract. We then developed a spatial dispersion model with an R-squared value greater than 0.950 to map out the gut mucosa-associated flora's non-linear spatial distribution pattern for 51.60% of the 188 most abundant gut bacterial species. Furthermore, spatial co-occurring network analysis of mucosa microbial inhabitants together with occupancy (that is habitat generalists, specialists and opportunist) analyses implies that ecological relationships (both oppositional and symbiotic) between mucosa microbial inhabitants may be important contributors to the observed spatial heterogeneity of mucosa microbiota along the human intestine and may even potentially be associated with mutual cooperation within and functional stability of the gut ecosystem.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Zhigang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Jiawei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Xiaodan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterology, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Center for Computational Mathematics and Applications, Department of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jinchao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: College of Forestry, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Xiujun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Zhanshan Sam
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044822:Biodiversity; D017753:Ecosystem; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000382:microbiology*; D008297:Male; D064307:Microbiota / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S