THE PUTATIVE ROLE OF GUT MICROBIOTA IN PRIMARY SCLEROSING CHOLANGITIS AND ULCERATIVE COLITIS IN CHILDREN

play an important role in health and pathological condition ofhuman, and recent study try to understand the link between gutand liver. It is well recognized that approximately 75% of patientswith primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) also have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in particular ulcerative colitis (UC). We conducta cross-sectional study (duration 1 year, age 2–18 years) toinvestigate gut microbial composition in pediatric patients withPSC associated to UC (8 pts), compared to patients with UC alone (7pts), and healthy controls (HC, 14 pts) to demonstrate a presenceof a different microbioma among them. Patients who have usedantibiotics and/or probiotics for 4 weeks before, and patients withother comorbidities were excluded. A collection of fresh fecal samplesfor metagenomic study of the gut microbiota was performed.An increase of Proteobacteria, and a reduction of Bacteroidetesand Firmicutes were found in UC patients. We found a reductionof alpha-diversity in PSC-UC and UC patients vs HC, with areduction of beta-diversity in PSC-UC vs UC patients. We found agreater abundance of Bacteroides fragilis and Prevotella copri in PSCUC(p < 0.05), and of Haemophilus parainfluenzae in UC (p < 0.05).Despite the small sample, this represents the first pediatric studyin this group of patients, offering the possibility to identify newmarkers of disease. The future treatments might be, in fact, directedto modulation of intestinal microbiota to determine an optimalcontrol of both diseases.