title: Prolonged use of a proton pump inhibitor reduces microbial diversity: implications for Clostridium difficile susceptibility.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The role of the gut microbiome in arresting pathogen colonization and growth is important for protection against Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Observational studies associate proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use and CDI incidence. We hypothesized that PPI use affected the distal gut microbiome over time, an effect that would be best explored by time-longitudinal study of healthy subjects on PPI in comparison to treatment-naïve CDI subjects. This study enrolled nine healthy human subjects and five subjects with treatment-naïve CDI. After random assignment to a low (20 mg/day) or high (2× 20 mg/day) dose group, fecal samples were collected from the nine healthy subjects before, during, and after 28 days of PPI use. This was done in conjunction with pre-treatment fecal collection from CDI subjects. High-throughput sequencing (16S rRNA) was performed on time-longitudinal samples to assess changes to the healthy gut microbiome associated with prolonged PPI usage. The healthy samples were then compared to the CDI subjects to explore changes over time to the gut microbiome associated with PPI use and potentially related to CDI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We report that PPI usage at low and high dosages, administered for 28 days, resulted in decreases to observed operational taxonomic unit (OTU) counts after both 1 week and 1 month. This decrease resulted in observed OTU levels that were similar to those found in treatment-naïve CDI patients, which was partly reversible after a 1 month recovery period. We did not detect a dose-dependent difference in OTU levels nor did we detect significant changes in taxa previously reported to be affected by PPI treatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  While our observation of diminishing observed OTU counts during PPI therapy is a preliminary finding in a small cohort, our hypothesis that PPIs disrupt the healthy human gut microbiome is supported in this group. We conclude that decreases in observed species counts were reversible after cessation of PPI usage within 1 month. This finding may be a potential explanation for the association between prolonged PPI usage and CDI incidence.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology, University of Minnesota-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA ; Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Charlie T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Seto
authors.affiliation: Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA ; Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Patricio
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jeraldo
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Orenstein
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology, University of Minnesota-Rochester, Rochester, MN, USA ; Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA ; Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA ; Division of Surgery Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA ; Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Chia
authors.affiliation: Division of Gastroenterology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: John K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: DiBaise
keywords: Clostridium difficile; Gut microbiome; Proton pump inhibitor