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Characterization of the gut mycobiome in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and correlations with serum metabolome

Summary

This research reveals that the types of fungi living in our gut are linked to fatty liver disease in ways we didn’t fully understand before. While researchers have long studied bacteria in our gut, they largely ignored fungi, which turns out to play an important role too. The study found that certain fungal species are more common in people with fatty liver disease, and these fungi influence the metabolites (chemical compounds) in the blood that affect liver health. By combining information about fungi, bacteria, and blood chemistry, scientists developed a test that could identify fatty liver disease with 77% accuracy, suggesting that looking at gut fungi could help doctors diagnose and treat this common liver condition.

Background

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a prevalent chronic liver condition affecting approximately one-quarter of the global population. While the gut bacteriome’s role in NAFLD is well-established, the contribution of the gut mycobiome remains largely overlooked. This study addresses the knowledge gap by investigating gut fungal communities and their associations with host metabolism in NAFLD patients.

Objective

To characterize the gut mycobiome composition in NAFLD patients compared to healthy controls and investigate correlations between fungal communities and serum metabolomic profiles. The study aims to identify specific fungal markers associated with NAFLD and explore fungal-bacterial interactions that may influence disease development.

Results

Although overall fungal diversity showed no significant differences between groups, four fungal species were significantly enriched in NAFLD patients: Pseudopithomyces sp. c174, Mucor sp. c176, Aspergillus sp. c25, and Ascochyta c213. The gut mycobiome explained 38.2% of variance in serum metabolomic profiles, with specific fungi correlating with NAFLD-relevant metabolites. A random forest classifier integrating 42 bacterial and fungal features achieved an AUC of 0.772 for NAFLD classification.

Conclusion

Gut fungal communities are functionally and ecologically altered in NAFLD and contribute meaningfully to shaping host metabolic environment. Although global fungal diversity did not differ significantly, specific fungal taxa and fungal-bacterial interaction networks were distinctly altered in NAFLD. These findings underscore the need to incorporate the gut mycobiome into microbiome-based strategies for NAFLD diagnosis and treatment.
  • Published in:BMC Microbiology,
  • Study Type:Observational Case-Control Study,
  • Source: PMID: 41087898; DOI: 10.1186/s12866-025-04348-y
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