Gut Microbiomes of Indian Children of Varying Nutritional Status

Abstract

BackgroundMalnutrition is a global health problem affecting more than 300 million pre-school children worldwide. It is one of the major health concerns in India since around 50% of children below the age of two suffer from various forms of malnutrition. The gut microbiome plays an important role in nutrient pre-processing, assimilation and energy harvest from food. Consequently, dysbiosis of the gut microbiota has been implicated in malnutrition.Methodology/Principal FindingsMetagenomics approach was adopted to investigate the gut microbiome sampled from 20 rural Indian children with varying nutritional status. The changes in the abundances of various taxonomic and functional groups were investigated across these gut microbiomes. A core set of 23 genera were observed across samples, with some showing differential abundances with varying nutritional status. One of the findings of the current study is the positive/negative associations of specific taxonomic and functional groups with the nutritional status of the children. Notable alterations in the architecture of the inter-microbial co-occurrence networks were also observed with changes in nutritional status. A key example is the clustering of potentially pathogenic groups into a distinct hub in severely malnourished gut. Our data does not demonstrate causality with the microbiome patterns that we observed, rather a description of some interesting patterns, whose underlying mechanism remains to be uncovered.ConclusionsThe present study envisioned interrelationships between the pattern of gut microbiome and the nutritional status of children. The cause of this pattern needs to be explored. However, insights obtained from the present study form the basis for further metagenomic investigations on larger population of children. Results of such studies will be useful in identifying the key microbial groups that can be utilized for targeted therapeutic interventions for managing severe acute malnutrition.

From Wasting to Obesity: The Contribution of Nutritional Status to Immune Activation in HIV Infection

“…Later studies of malnourished children and well-nourished controls in Bangladesh found that poor nutritional status was associated with enrichment of Proteobacteria, including a 174-fold and 9-fold increase in Klebsiella and Escherichia levels, respectively, and depletion of Bacteroidetes [49]. In Indian children, nutritional status was negatively correlated with the proportion of Proteobacteria (including Escherichia, Shigella, and Enterobacter) and positively correlated with the proportion of anaerobic Firmicutes (including Roseburia, Faecalibacterium, and Butyrivibrio) [50]. This pattern of enriched Proteobacteria and depleted Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes accompanying malnutrition has also been observed in other case-control pediatric studies [51,52].…”

Keadaan Mikrobiota Saluran Cerna pada Anak Sekolah Dasar yang Mengalami Stunting di Lombok Barat

“…Menurut Zimmerman et al (2010), total populasi Lactobacillus yang normal pada anak sekitar 6-8 log CFU/g. Hal ini juga sejalan dengan penelitian Ghosh et al (2014). Penelitian tersebut dilakukan pada anak di India yang dikelompokkan menjadi tiga yaitu anak sehat, anak malnutrisi pada borderline dan anak dengan malnutrisi parah.…”

“…Namun, kecenderungan jumlah koloni patogen lebih banyak pada anak yang stunting (7,82±0,68 dan 7,03±0,97 log CFU/g) dibandingkan anak normal (7,71±0,81 dan 6,96±1,22 log CFU/g). Berdasarkan penelitian yang dilakukan Ghosh et al (2014) bahwa mikrobiota saluran cerna pada anak berbeda-beda komposisinya tergantung status gizi. Semakin buruk status gizi seorang anak, maka komposisi mikrobiota yang ada di dalam saluran cerna lebih banyak mikrobiota patogen (Ghosh et al 2014).…”

“…Berdasarkan penelitian yang dilakukan Ghosh et al (2014) bahwa mikrobiota saluran cerna pada anak berbeda-beda komposisinya tergantung status gizi. Semakin buruk status gizi seorang anak, maka komposisi mikrobiota yang ada di dalam saluran cerna lebih banyak mikrobiota patogen (Ghosh et al 2014). Penelitian lain juga menunjukkan bahwa anak stunting, mikrobiota saluran cernanya kaya akan bakteri inflammogenic seperti genus Desulfovibrio dan ordo Campylobacterales (Dinh et al 2016).…”

Mechanisms of cross-talk between the diet, the intestinal microbiome, and the undernourished host

“…Decades later, culture-independent high-throughput microbial DNA sequencing technologies reinvigorated studies that sought to more precisely define the altered fecal bacterial populations in undernourished children, [18][19][20][21][22] with the hope that such work would shed light on how dysbiosis might contribute to impaired weight gain and how microbiome-targeting therapies might be used to improve a child's nutritional status. 5,23 These observational studies revealed two key findings.…”