The gut mycobiome signatures in long-lived populations.

Long-lived individuals have been extensively studied as a model to investigate the role of the gut microbiota in aging, but their gut fungi remain almost unexplored. Here, we recruited a community-dwelling cohort of 251 participants (24-108 years, including 47 centenarians) from Guangxi in China to characterize the gut mycobiome signatures. We found gut mycobiome markedly varied during aging and determined aging as a predominant factor driving these variations. For long-lived individuals, core taxa, including Penicillium and Aspergillus, were maintained and Candida enterotype was enriched when compared with old counterparts. Individuals with this enterotype were more likely to possess Bacteroides enterotype enriched in young and centenarians. Moreover, the drivers from Candida enterotype were positively linked with the bacteria components dominated in Bacteroides enterotype. We also identified potentially beneficial yeasts-enriched features to differentiate long-lived individuals from others. Our findings suggest that the gut mycobiome develops with aging, and long-lived individuals possess unique fungal signatures.

Longevity of centenarians is reflected by the gut microbiome with youth-associated signatures.

Centenarians are an excellent model to study the relationship between the gut microbiome and longevity. To characterize the gut microbiome signatures of aging, we conducted a cross-sectional investigation of 1,575 individuals (20-117 years) from Guangxi province of China, including 297 centenarians (n = 45 with longitudinal sampling). Compared to their old adult counterparts, centenarians displayed youth-associated features in the gut microbiome characterized by an over-representation of a Bacteroides-dominated enterotype, increase in species evenness, enrichment of potentially beneficial Bacteroidetes and depletion of potential pathobionts. Health status stratification in older individuals did not alter the directional trends for these signature comparisons but revealed more apparent associations in less healthy individuals. Importantly, longitudinal analysis of centenarians across a 1.5-year period indicated that the youth-associated gut microbial signatures were enhanced with regard to increased evenness, reduction in interindividual variation and stability of Bacteroides, and that centenarians with low microbial evenness were prone to large microbiome instability during aging. These results together highlight a youth-related aging pattern of the gut microbiome for long-lived individuals.