Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China
Objective The human gut microbiota plays important roles in human health but is also known to be highly diverse between populations from different regions. Yet most studies inadequately account for this regional diversity in their analyses. This study examines the extent to which geographical variat...
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BMJ Publishing Group
2020-11-01
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| Series: | BMJ Open |
| Online Access: | https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/11/e038163.full |
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| author | Bing Zhang Annie Green Howard Zhihong Wang Huijun Wang Chang Su Shan Sun Matthew CB Tsilimigras Wei Sha Jiguo Zhang Shufa Du Michael Sioda Farnaz Fouladi Anthony Fodor Penny Gordon-Larsen |
| author_facet | Bing Zhang Annie Green Howard Zhihong Wang Huijun Wang Chang Su Shan Sun Matthew CB Tsilimigras Wei Sha Jiguo Zhang Shufa Du Michael Sioda Farnaz Fouladi Anthony Fodor Penny Gordon-Larsen |
| author_sort | Bing Zhang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Objective The human gut microbiota plays important roles in human health but is also known to be highly diverse between populations from different regions. Yet most studies inadequately account for this regional diversity in their analyses. This study examines the extent to which geographical variation can act as a confounding variable for studies that associate the microbiota with human phenotypic variation.Design Population-based study.Setting China.Participants 2164 participants from 15 province-level divisions in China.Primary and secondary outcome measures We analysed the impact of geographic location on associations between the human gut microbiota and 72 host factors representing a wide variety of environmental-level, household-level and individual-level factors.Results While the gut microbiota varied across a wide range of host factors including urbanisation, occupation and dietary variables, the geographic region (province/megacity) of the participants explained the largest proportion of the variance (17.9%). The estimated effect sizes for other host factors varied substantially by region with little evidence of a reproducible signal across different areas as measured by permutational multivariate analysis of variance and random forest models.Conclusions Our results suggest that geographic variation is an essential factor that should be explicitly considered when generalising microbiota-based models to host phenotype across different populations. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-728df6a4eb03460983c1f82adcf6f32a |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2044-6055 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2020-11-01 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMJ Open |
| spelling | doaj-art-728df6a4eb03460983c1f82adcf6f32a2025-08-20T02:07:41ZengBMJ Publishing GroupBMJ Open2044-60552020-11-01101110.1136/bmjopen-2020-038163Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in ChinaBing Zhang0Annie Green Howard1Zhihong Wang2Huijun Wang3Chang Su4Shan Sun5Matthew CB Tsilimigras6Wei Sha7Jiguo Zhang8Shufa Du9Michael Sioda10Farnaz Fouladi11Anthony Fodor12Penny Gordon-Larsen13School of Life Science, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, People`s Republic of ChinaDepartment of Biostatistics, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA6 Health Science Center, Shenzhen University First Affiliated Hospital, Shenzhen, China1 State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin, ChinaNational Institute for Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of ENT Institute and Otorhinolaryngology, Fudan University Eye Ear Nose and Throat Hospital, Shanghai, ChinaCarolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USADepartment of Bioinformatics and Genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USANational Institute for Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, Beijing, ChinaCarolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USADepartment of Bioinformatics and Genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USADepartment of Bioinformatics and Genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USADepartment of Bioinformatics and Genomics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, USADepartment of Nutrition, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USAObjective The human gut microbiota plays important roles in human health but is also known to be highly diverse between populations from different regions. Yet most studies inadequately account for this regional diversity in their analyses. This study examines the extent to which geographical variation can act as a confounding variable for studies that associate the microbiota with human phenotypic variation.Design Population-based study.Setting China.Participants 2164 participants from 15 province-level divisions in China.Primary and secondary outcome measures We analysed the impact of geographic location on associations between the human gut microbiota and 72 host factors representing a wide variety of environmental-level, household-level and individual-level factors.Results While the gut microbiota varied across a wide range of host factors including urbanisation, occupation and dietary variables, the geographic region (province/megacity) of the participants explained the largest proportion of the variance (17.9%). The estimated effect sizes for other host factors varied substantially by region with little evidence of a reproducible signal across different areas as measured by permutational multivariate analysis of variance and random forest models.Conclusions Our results suggest that geographic variation is an essential factor that should be explicitly considered when generalising microbiota-based models to host phenotype across different populations.https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/11/e038163.full |
| spellingShingle | Bing Zhang Annie Green Howard Zhihong Wang Huijun Wang Chang Su Shan Sun Matthew CB Tsilimigras Wei Sha Jiguo Zhang Shufa Du Michael Sioda Farnaz Fouladi Anthony Fodor Penny Gordon-Larsen Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China BMJ Open |
| title | Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China |
| title_full | Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China |
| title_fullStr | Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China |
| title_short | Does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota: a population-based study in China |
| title_sort | does geographical variation confound the relationship between host factors and the human gut microbiota a population based study in china |
| url | https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/11/e038163.full |
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