The microbiome composition is associated with rectal mucosal inflammation, and distinct inflammation-associated bacterial guilds were identified in the rectal mucosa of MSM engaging in RAI and controls LDM analyses demonstrated a highly significant global association ( p = 0.007) between the microbiome composition by relative abundance and the 12C IS.
Rectal mucosal inflammation was higher in secretions collected at baseline among MSM engaging in RAI compared to controls There was a marginally significant ( p = 0.09) difference in overall cytokine profile across all study visits between the MSM-RAI and control groups with five significantly elevated cytokines in the MSM-RAI group (IL-1β, IL-17A, IP-10, IL-8, and IFN-γ; all p < 0.05 for individual cytokines, Fig. 1 A and Supplementary Table 1 ).
We observed faster wound healing time in the MSM-RAI group that did not reach statistical significance.