Scientometrics
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Jul 6, 2020; 8(13): 2817-2832
Published online Jul 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i13.2817
Bibliometric analysis of subject trends and knowledge structures of gut microbiota
Yuan-Yi Yue, Xin-Yue Fan, Qiang Zhang, Yi-Ping Lu, Si Wu, Shuang Wang, Miao Yu, Chang-Wan Cui, Zheng-Rong Sun
Yuan-Yi Yue, Department of Gastroenterology Medicine, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Xin-Yue Fan, Student Affairs Department, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Qiang Zhang, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province
Yi-Ping Lu, Si Wu, Shuang Wang, Miao Yu, Chang-Wan Cui, Zheng-Rong Sun, BioBank, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China
Author contributions: Yue YY designed the research; Fan XY and Zhang Q did data analysis; Yue YY, Lu YP, Wu S, Wang S, Yu M, and Cui CW prepared the original draft Sun ZR did project administration; All authors reviewed, edited and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by the Liaoning Provincial Key R and D Guidance Plan Project in 2018, No. 2018225009 and the Liaoning Colleges and Universities Basic Research Project, No. LFWK201710.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zheng-Rong Sun, PhD, Professor, BioBank, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, No. 36, Sanhao Street, Heping District, Shenyang 110004, Liaoning Province, China. sunzr@sj-hospital.org
Received: April 7, 2020
Peer-review started: April 7, 2020
First decision: April 28, 2020
Revised: May 5, 2020
Accepted: May 30, 2020
Article in press: May 30, 2020
Published online: July 6, 2020
Processing time: 90 Days and 17.5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Gut microbiota is an emerging field of research, with related research having breakthrough development in the past 15 years. Bibliometric analysis can be applied to analyze the evolutionary trends and emerging hotspots in this field.

AIM

To study the subject trends and knowledge structures of gut microbiota related research fields from 2004 to 2018.

METHODS

The literature data on gut microbiota were identified and downloaded from the PubMed database. Through biclustering analysis, strategic diagrams, and social network analysis diagrams, the main trend and knowledge structure of research fields concerning gut microbiota were analyzed to obtain and compare the research hotspots in each period.

RESULTS

According to the strategic coordinates and social relationship network map, Clostridium Infections/microbiology, Clostridium Infections/therapy, RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics, Microbiota/genetics, Microbiota/immunology, Dysbiosis/immunology, Infla-mmation/immunology, Fecal Microbiota Transplantation/methods, Fecal Microbiota Transplantation can be used as an emerging research hotspot in the past 5 years (2014-2018).

CONCLUSION

Some subjects were not yet fully studied according to the strategic coordinates; and the emerging hotspots in the social network map can be considered as directions of future research.

Keywords: Gut microbiota; Bibliometric analysis; Co-word analysis; Strategic coordinates; Social relationship network analysis

Core tip: In this study, the co-word analysis method was used for the first time to study the subject trends and knowledge structures of gut microbiota related research fields from 2004 to 2018. Our results indicate that some subjects have not been not fully studied yet, and the emerging hotspots in the social network map can be considered as a direction of future research.