Abstract

Aims Given the lasting impact of chronic paradoxical sleep deprivation (PSD) on behavior and organism metabolic alternations, along with the role of the microbiome in neurobehavioral development and metabolism, we sought to examine the relationship between the microbiota and chronic PSD-induced behavioral and metabolic changes.

Materials and methods Psychological status of 7-day PSD (7d-PSD) male rats was tested by behavioral method, serum inflammatory cytokines and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis-related hormones. In addition, GC–MS based urine metabolomics and 16S rRNA gene sequencing approaches were applied to estimate the influences of chronic PSD on host metabolism and gut-microbiota. Furtherly, microbial functional prediction and Spearman's correlation analysis were implemented to manifest the relations between the differential urinary metabolites and gut microbiota.

Key findings 7d-PSD rats displayed depression-like behavior, metabolic and microbial changes. By integrating differential gut bacteria with indicators of depression and differential metabolites, we found that the alterations of Akkermansia, Oscillospira, Ruminococcus, Parabacteroides, Aggregatibacter and Phascolarctobacterium were closely related to abnormalities of depression symptoms and inflammatory cytokines. These bacteria also had close connections with host energy metabolism concerning arginine and proline metabolism, glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, and glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, which overlapped with the results of 16S rRNA gene function annotation.