Antenatal gut microbiome profiles and effect on pregnancy outcome in HIV infected and HIV uninfected women in a resource limited setting

Abstract

Background Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) severely damages the epithelial cells of the gut lining leading to an inflamed leaky gut, translocation of microbial products, and dysbiosis resulting in systemic immune activation. Also, microbiota composition and maternal gut function can be altered in pregnancy through changes in the immune system and intestinal physiology. The aim of this study was to investigate the gut microbiota in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected pregnant women and to compare and identify the association between gut microbial composition and adverse birth outcomes. Results A total of 94 pregnant women (35 HIV-infected and 59 HIV-uninfected controls) were recruited in Harare from 4 polyclinics serving populations with relatively poor socioeconomic status. Women were of a median age of 28 years (interquartile range, IQR: 22.3–32.0) and 55% of women were 35 weeks gestational age at enrolment (median 35.0 weeks, IQR: 32.5–37.2). Microbiota profiling in these participants showed that species richness was significantly lower in the HIV-infected pregnant women compared to their HIV-uninfected peers and significant differences in β-diversity using Bray–Curtis dissimilarity were observed. In contrast, there was no significant difference in α-diversity between immune-compromised (CD4+ < 350 cells/µL) and immune-competent HIV-infected women (CD4+ ≥ 350 cells/µL) even after stratification by viral load suppression. HIV infection was significantly associated with a reduced abundance of Clostridium, Turicibacter, Ruminococcus, Parabacteroides, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Treponema, Oscillospira, and Faecalibacterium and a higher abundance of Actinomyces, and Succinivibrio. Low infant birth weight (< 2500 g) was significantly associated with high abundances of the phylum Spirochaetes, the families Spirochaeteceae, Veillonellaceae, and the genus Treponema. Conclusion The results reported here show that the species richness and taxonomy composition of the gut microbiota is altered in HIV-infected pregnant women, possibly reflecting intestinal dysbiosis. Some of these taxa were also associated with low infant birth weight.

Immune activation and inflammation in lactating women on combination antiretroviral therapy: role of gut dysfunction and gut microbiota imbalance

“…In contrast, in other studies, reduced ( 16 , 17 , 64 , 69 ) or increased ( 41 ) alpha diversity was observed in HIV-infected cART-naïve individuals. Furthermore, in our study, microbiota richness or evenness was not influenced by immune status, in agreement with some ( 34 , 44 , 70 , 71 ) but not all previous studies in HIV-infected individuals ( 72 ). Most likely, cART-mediated viral suppression can restore or preserve immune status sufficiently that gross effects of HIV on the gut microbiota are no longer detectable.…”

“…We investigated longitudinal changes in the gut microbiota from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum. The pregnancy gut microbiota from our study population has been previously described in detail ( 34 ). In brief, species richness was lower (Shannon, p = 0.0092, and Simpson, p = 0.012) in the HIV-infected women compared with that in the uninfected peers.…”

Gut virome and microbiome dynamics before and after SARS-CoV-2 infection in women living with HIV and their infants

“…Another nding consistent with other studies was the association between antibiotic use signi cant dissimilarity in bacterial beta diversity among women [55][56][57] . Additionally, we found that both HIV and SARS-CoV-2 have impact on the gut microbiome as has been found in previous studies 8, 17,18,20,58,59 . Investigating the interaction between SARS-CoV-2 and HIV infection and its impact on gut microbiome and virome is unique to our study, albeit we did not nd any signi cant interactions.…”