LAUSR

Background Early life stress is a significant environmental factor for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Recent animal studies have shown that the long-term effect of early life stress might influence the combination of intestinal microbiota in the adult. The present study examined the association between early life stress and the microbiota features in the fecal sample of adult participants. Methods We recruited 7 MDD patients and 11 healthy controls, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was used to examine the status of each dimension of childhood maltreatment. The fecal samples were examined by Illumina Miniseq or Miseq platform for 16 s rRNA sequencing of microbiota features. Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) was applied to test associations between early life stress and microbiota. Results We used the average score of sexual abuse by all participants as a cut-off point. The abundance of Phascolarctobacterium, Deltaproteobacteria, Bilophila, Thiothrix, Thiotrichaceae, and Thiotrichales significantly increased in the adult participants with childhood trauma of sexual abuse. After adjusted for MDD status, the groups of microbiota still significantly increased in abundance of Bilophila, Thiothrix, Thiotrichaceae, and Thiotrichales. Discussion The replication data with 15 MDD patients and 25 healthy controls is underway. Our study revealed the association between the early life stress and the microbiota features.