LRBmat: A Novel Gut Microbial Interaction and Individual Heterogeneity Inference Method for Colorectal Cancer

Many diseases are considered to be closely related to the changes in the gut microbial community, including colorectal cancer (CRC), which is one of the most common cancers in the world. The diagnostic classification and etiological analysis of CRC are two critical issues worthy of attention. Many methods adopt gut microbiota to solve it, but few of them simultaneously take into account the complex interactions and individual heterogeneity of gut microbiota, which are two common and important issues in genetics and intestinal microbiology, especially in high-dimensional cases. In this paper, a novel method with a Binary matrix based on Logistic Regression (LRBmat) is proposed to deal with the above problem. The binary matrix can directly weakened or avoided the influence of heterogeneity, and also contain the information about gut microbial interactions with any order. Moreover, LRBmat has a powerful generalization, it can combine with any machine learning method and enhance them. The real data analysis on CRC validates the proposed method, which has the best classification performance compared with the state-of-the-art. Furthermore, the association rules extracted from the binary matrix of the real data align well with the biological properties and existing literatures, which are helpful for the etiological analysis of CRC. The source codes for LRBmat are available at https://github.com/tsnm1/LRBmat

Chronic Kidney Disease Induced Intestinal Mucosal Barrier Damage Associated with Intestinal Oxidative Stress Injury

Background. To investigate whether intestinal mucosal barrier was damaged or not in chronic kidney disease progression and the status of oxidative stress. Methods. Rats were randomized into two groups: a control group and a uremia group. The uremia rat model was induced by 5/6 kidney resection. In postoperative weeks (POW) 4, 6, 8, and 10, eight rats were randomly selected from each group to prepare samples for assessing systemic inflammation, intestinal mucosal barrier changes, and the status of intestinal oxidative stress. Results. The uremia group presented an increase trend over time in the serum tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and IL-10, serum D-lactate and diamine oxidase, and intestinal permeability, and these biomarkers were significantly higher than those in control group in POW 8 and/or 10. Chiu’s scores in uremia group were also increased over time, especially in POW 8 and 10. Furthermore, the intestinal malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase levels were significantly higher in uremia group when compared with those in control group in POW 8 and/or 10. Conclusions. The advanced chronic kidney disease could induce intestinal mucosal barrier damage and further lead to systemic inflammation. The underlying mechanism may be associated with the intestinal oxidative stress injury