Functional and taxonomic traits of the gut microbiota in Type 1 diabetes children at the onset: a metaproteomic study

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune metabolic disorder with onset in pediatric/adolescent age, characterized by insufficient insulin production, due to a progressive destructionof pancreatic -cells. Evidence on the correlation between the human gut microbiota (GM) compositionand T1D insurgence has been recently reported. In particular, 16S rRNA-based metagenomicshas been intensively employed in the last decade in a number of investigations focused on GMrepresentation in relation to a pre-disease state or to a response to clinical treatments. On the otherhand, few works have been published using alternative functional omics, which is more suitable toprovide a different interpretation of such a relationship. In this work, we pursued a comprehensivemetaproteomic investigation on T1D children compared with a group of siblings (SIBL) and a referencecontrol group (CTRL) composed of aged matched healthy subjects, with the aim of findingfeatures in the T1D patients’ GM to be related with the onset of the disease. Modulated metaproteinswere found either by comparing T1D with CTRL and SIBL or by stratifying T1D by insulin need (IN),as a proxy of -cells damage, showing some functional and taxonomic traits of the GM, possiblyrelated to the disease onset at different stages of severity.