Abstract
The challenging conditions encountered during long sea voyages increase the risk of health-threatening physiological and psychological stress for sailors compared with land-based workers. However, how the intestinal microbiota responds to a long sea voyage and whether there is a feasible approach for protecting gut health during sea voyage are still unexplored. Here, we designed a 30-d longitudinal study including a placebo group (n = 42) and a probiotic group (n = 40) and used shotgun metagenomic sequencing to explore the impacts of sea voyage on the intestinal microbiome of sailors. By comparing the intestinal microbiome of subjects in the placebo group at baseline (d 0) and at the end of the sea voyage (d 30), we observed an alteration in the intestinal microbiome during the long sea voyage based on the microbial structure; the results revealed an increase in the species Streptococcus gordonii and Klebsiella pneumoniae as well as a decrease in some functional features. However, the change in the microbial structure of sailors in the probiotic group between d 0 and d 30 was limited, which indicated a maintenance effect of probiotics on intestinal microbiome homeostasis. At the metagenomic strain level, a generally positive correlation was observed between probiotics and the strains belonging to Bifidobacterium longum and Bifidobacterium animalis, whereas a common negative correlation was observed between probiotics and Clostridium leptum; this result revealed the potential mechanism of maintaining intestinal microbiome homeostasis by probiotics. The present study provided a feasible approach for protecting gut health during a long sea voyage.