Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2025; 15(7): 104921
Published online Jul 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i7.104921
Correlation between depressive-like behavior and gut microbiota in mice with hypothyroidism
Han-Jie Guo, Xiao-Qing Ma, Yan-Ting Li, Zhao-Han Zhou, Wei Tao, Yu-Hao Jiang, Xiao-Long Li, Xi-Liang Zhang
Han-Jie Guo, Xiao-Qing Ma, Xi-Liang Zhang, Department of General Surgery, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510005, Guangdong Province, China
Han-Jie Guo, Wei Tao, Yu-Hao Jiang, Xiao-Long Li, Xi-Liang Zhang, Department of General Surgery, Xinqiao Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400037, China
Yan-Ting Li, Department of Anesthesiology, Guangzhou First People’s Hospital, Guangzhou 510180, Guangdong Province, China
Zhao-Han Zhou, Department of Radiology, Shantou Central Hospital, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Co-first authors: Han-Jie Guo and Xiao-Qing Ma.
Co-corresponding authors: Xiao-Long Li and Xi-Liang Zhang.
Author contributions: Zhang XL and Li XL designed the study and contributed equally as co-corresponding authors; Guo HJ and Ma XQ conducted research and processed data, they contributed equally as co-first authors; Guo HJ and Li YT wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Zhou ZH, Tao W, and Jiang YH revised the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Beijing Science and Technology Project, No. Z191100006619059.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All animal experiments were conducted following the protocols approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) of Army Medical University, China (Approval No. AMUWE20244492).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xi-Liang Zhang, MD, Department of General Surgery, School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou University Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou 510005, Guangdong Province, China. doctor_zxl1978@126.com
Received: February 7, 2025
Revised: March 18, 2025
Accepted: May 16, 2025
Published online: July 19, 2025
Processing time: 152 Days and 19 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Our research has found that hypothyroidism-induced depression is associated with gut microbiota dysbiosis, and the intestinal barrier dysfunction and the activation of peripheral and central inflammation play important roles between the two. Furthermore, through Pearson correlation analysis, we found that specific bacterial genera including Bilophila and Gordonibacter, correlate with depressive-like behaviors, suggesting that microbiota-targeted interventions may offer therapeutic benefits for depression associated with hypothyroidism.