Meconium microbiome associates with the development of neonatal jaundice

Abstract

ObjectiveNeonatal jaundice is a common disease that affects up to 60% of newborns. Gut microbiota mediated the excretion of bilirubin from the human body. However, the relationship between early gut microbiome and development of neonatal jaundice is not fully understood. Here we sought to characterize meconium microbiome of newborns and to clarify its association with risk of neonatal jaundice.MethodsWe conducted a nested case–control study with 301 newborns providing meconium samples from 2014 to 2015. The main outcome was the development of neonatal jaundice at 42 day follow-up. 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed to profile the meconium microbiome. LEfSe was employed to identify different features between control and case groups. Logistic regression was used to estimate the risk effect of early gut microbiome on neonatal jaundice.ResultsLogistic regression models suggested that higher ɑ-diversity was significantly associated with lower risk of jaundice in cesarean infants (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.52–0.98), but not in infants born naturally. Higher relative abundance of Bifidobacterium pseudolongum in newborn meconium was significantly associated with lower risk of jaundice both in cesarean-born infants and in the total subjects (OR 0.24, 95% CI 0.07–0.68; OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.31–0.95, respectively). Spearman’s correlations showed that relative abundance of B. pseudolongum was significantly correlated with ɑ-diversity (P < 0.01).ConclusionPreventive and treatment methods implying early gut microbiome intervention could be promising for the management of neonatal jaundice.

Microbiota of newborn meconium is associated with maternal anxiety experienced during pregnancy

“…Our data also showed the beta diversity of meconium microbiome is significantly associated with delivery mode. It is contradictory to the previous reports (Dong et al, 2018;Hu et al, 2013) that the mode of delivery is unlikely a major contributor to shape this initial bacterial community as the meconium microbiota is mostly derived from the in utero environment. One possible reason for our result is the almost 100% overlapping between the delivery mode via C-section and antibiotic usage, in which the latter may affect the meconium microbiome composition significantly.…”

“…Those studies contributed to a growing consensus that commensal bacteria are present in the intrauterine environment and may influence the bacterial colonization of babies before birth (DiGiulio et al, 2008;Jiménez et al, 2008;Rautava, Collado, Salminen, & Isolauri, 2012;Satokari, Grönroos, Laitinen, Salminen, & Isolauri, 2009) or during the delivery when the baby goes through the birth canal (Jašarević, Rodgers et al, 2015). Although this in utero colonization hypothesis has recently been questioned for its inconsistency, in part, due to the generally extreme low bacterial load in the intrauterine environment and to possible artifacts from environmental contaminations (Lauder et al, 2016;Perez-Muñoz, Arrieta, Ramer-Tait, & Walter, 2017), a growing number of studies have supported the existence of meconium microbiota and their association with health outcomes (Chu et al, 2016;Dong et al, 2018;Durack et al, 2018). It has been hypothesized that the central nervous system (CNS) and intestinal microbiota develop in parallel during the prenatal and early postnatal periods and interact during critical phases of development (Borre et al, 2014).…”

“…However, their study lacked data on the effect of maternal psychosocial health during pregnancy on the initial bacterial composition. The accumulating evidence suggests an important role for early microbiome colonization on the priming of the immune system, with long‐lasting consequences on disease risk later in life (Abrahamsson et al, ; Azad et al, ; Dong et al, ; Wilczyńska, Skarżyńska, & Lisowska‐Myjak, ), and emphasizes the need to have a better understanding of the predictors of the initial microbiota composition in human offspring. Such knowledge could help develop new strategies directed to modify aberrant or altered bacterial communities.…”

Delayed Establishment of Gut Microbiota in Infants Delivered by Cesarean Section

“…In this study, the major bacterium which formed infant gastrointestinal microbiota belonged to the Firmicutes and Proteobacteria phyla ( Nagpal et al, 2016 ; Dong et al, 2018 ; Nagpal and Yamashiro, 2018 ). Specifically, the colonization levels of several genera belonging to Firmicutes, such as Enterococcoceae , Lachnospiraceae , and Lactobacillus were significantly influenced by delivery mode ( Gronlund et al, 1999 ; Rutayisire et al, 2016 ).…”

Clinical characteristics influence cultivable-bacteria composition in the meconium of Indonesian neonates

“…Microbiota in meconium has been vastly studied due to its possible impact on infant's health and development and diseases that may be contracted during their early days as well as in the long term [ 2 , 9 , 10 ]. It was reported that the bacteria taxonomic diversity is relatively low at birth but increases over time as the infant is colonized with bacteria acquired from breast milk and the environment [ 11 ].…”