Patterns of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence factor genes in the gut microbiome of patients with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis

The gut microbiome compositions of Osteoarthritis (OA) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients have been studied, but functional genomics, specifically ARGs and VFGs, have not been explored. A study using gut metagenomic data found that both OA and RA patients have higher alpha diversity in ARGs compared to healthy controls. VFGs showed higher diversity in RA, but not as pronounced in OA patients. The model achieved high accuracy in distinguishing OA and RA from healthy controls.