BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) is regarded as the criterion standard for gallstone therapy, but post-cholecystectomy syndrome (PCS) is a common complication. This study aimed to analyze and identify differences in gut microbiome in PCS patients.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study involved 8 PCS patients (RS1), 8 asymptomatic PCS patients (RS2), and 8 healthy individuals (RS3). Genomic DNA of gut microbiome was extracted and amplified with CTAB method. PCR products were sequenced with Illumina High-Through Sequencing. Sequencing data were analyzed with QIIME software. Effective sequence of bacterial 16S-rRNA gene was clustered into OTUs using UPARSE software. Species annotations were evaluated using Mothur software. QIIME software was used to conduct complexity analysis and calculate UniFrac distances. R software was used to generate PCoA plots.

RESULTS: Bacterial 16S-rDNA gene sequences showed that the effective species annotative data were more than 97%. According to Ternary plot, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes had similar abundance and contents among the 3 groups. Contents of Proteobacteria in RS1 were higher compared to RS2 and RS3. Bacterial genomic DNAs samples were clustered together in the same group; however, distances were relative far between different groups. RS1 illustrated significantly higher abundance of Proteobacteria colonies compared to healthy people (p<0.05), and illustrated higher abundance of Verrucomicrobia and lower abundance of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, but without significant differences (p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Gut microbiome of PCS patients was dominated by Proteobacteria in feces and contained little Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes. The enhanced abundance of Proteobacteria might be the highly pathogenic risk factor for chronic abdominal pain and diarrhea in PCS patients.

Keywords: Postcholecystectomy Syndrome, Proteobacteria