Objective To investigate the metabolism and function of the intestinal microbiota from liver cirrhosis patients.Methods Sixteen cases of liver cirrhosis and twenty normal individuals were selected , whose intestinal microbiota metagenomic DNA was extracted , followed by high-throughput Solexa sequencing and the bioinformatics analysis of metabo-lism and function annotation to compare the differences between the patients and normal subjects and find out about the cir -rhosis-related functions .Results The functional diversity was significantly reduced in the intestinal microbiota of cirrhotic patients.At the module or pathway level , the intestinal microbiota of patients showed an enrichment in metabolisms of drugs, essential amino acid , propanoate metabolism and inflammatory reaction , whereas an opposite tendency was observed in the metabolic ability of butyrate , bile acid and cell cycle .Conclusion Under the influence of liver cirrhosis , the growth environment in the intestine is destroyed , causing, the intestinal microbiota the exhibit some compensation to adapt to the changed intestinal micro-environment .