The group of butyrate-producing bacteria within the human
gut microbiome may be associated with positive effects on
memory improvement, according to previous studies on dementia-
associated diseases. Here, fecal samples of four elderly
Japanese diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) were
used to isolate butyrate-producing bacteria. 226 isolates were
randomly picked, their 16S rRNA genes were sequenced,
and assigned into sixty OTUs (operational taxonomic units)
based on BLASTn results. Four isolates with less than 97%
homology to known sequences were considered as unique
OTUs of potentially butyrate-producing bacteria. In addition,
12 potential butyrate-producing isolates were selected
from the remaining 56 OTUs based on scan-searching against
the PubMed and the ScienceDirect databases. Those belonged
to the phylum Bacteroidetes and to the clostridial clusters I,
IV, XI, XV, XIVa within the phylum Firmicutes. 15 out of
the 16 isolates were indeed able to produce butyrate in culture
as determined by high-performance liquid chromatography
with UV detection. Furthermore, encoding genes for butyrate
formation in these bacteria were identified by sequencing
of degenerately primed PCR products and included the
genes for butyrate kinase (buk), butyryl-CoA: acetate CoAtransferase
(but), CoA-transferase-related, and propionate
CoA-transferase. The results showed that eight isolates possessed
buk, while five isolates possessed but. The CoA-transfer-
related gene was identified as butyryl-CoA:4-hydroxybutyrate
CoA transferase (4-hbt) in four strains. No strains
contained the propionate CoA-transferase gene. The biochemical
and butyrate-producing pathways analyses of butyrate
producers presented in this study may help to characterize
the butyrate-producing bacterial community in the gut of AD patients.