The potential of Klebsiella and Escherichia-Shigella and amino acids metabolism to monitor patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis in northwest China

Intestinal flora has been proposed to mediate the occurrence of postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO). However, the mechanism by which microbes and their metabolites interactively promote PMO remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate changes in the intestinal flora and associated metabolites, and their role in PMO. 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metabolomics were performed to obtain postmenopausal women with osteopenia (lower bone mass, LBM), postmenopausal women with osteoporosis (OST), and healthy women as the control group. We identified taxa-specific and metabolite differences in the intestinal flora of the participants of this study. The pathogenic bacteria Klebsiella (0.59% and 0.71%, respectively) and Escherichia-Shigella (2.72% and 4.30%, respectively) were enriched in the LBM and OST groups (p