Profiling the differences of gut microbial structure between schizophrenia patients with and without violent behaviors based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing

Understanding the violence behaviors in schizophrenia patients has always been the focus of forensic psychiatry. Although many studies show gut microbiota could regulate behavior, to our knowledge, no studies have profiled the gut microbiota structure in schizophrenia patients with violence. We profiled the characteristics of gut microbiota structure in 26 schizophrenia patients with violence (V.SCZ) by comparing with that of 16 schizophrenia patients without violence (NV.SCZ) under the control of confounders, and found the differences of gut microbiota structure between the two groups. Violence was assessed by the MacArthur Community Violence Instrument. Psychiatric symptoms were assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used to identify and relatively quantify gut microbial composition. Bioinformatics analysis was used to find differential gut microbial composition between the V.SCZ and NV.SCZ groups. Fifty-nine differential microbial taxonomic compositions were found between the two groups. Fifteen gut microbial compositions were the key microbial taxonomic compositions responsible for the differences between the V.SCZ and NV.SCZ groups, including five enriched microbial taxonomic compositions (p_Bacteroidetes,c_Bacteroidia,o_Bacteroidales,f_Prevotellaceae,s_Bacteroides_uniformis), and ten impoverished microbial taxonomic compositions (p_Actinobacteria,c_unidentified_Actinobacteria,o_Bifidobacteriales,f_ Enterococcaceae,f_Veillonellaceae,f_Bifidobacteriaceae,g_Enterococcus,g_Candidatus_Saccharimonas,g_Bifidobacterium, ands_Bifidobacterium_pseudocatenulatum). This study profiled the differences of gut microbiota between schizophrenia patients with violence and without violence. These results could enrich the etiological understanding of violence in schizophrenia and might be helpful to violence management in the future.