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. 2011 Nov 21:2:228.
doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2011.00228. eCollection 2011.

Gut microbiota of healthy and malnourished children in bangladesh

Shirajum Monira  1 , Shota Nakamura, Kazuyoshi Gotoh, Kaori Izutsu, Haruo Watanabe, Nur Haque Alam, Hubert Ph Endtz, Alejandro Cravioto, Sk Imran Ali, Takaaki Nakaya, Toshihiro Horii, Tetsuya Iida, Munirul Alam
Affiliations

Gut microbiota of healthy and malnourished children in bangladesh

Shirajum Monira et al. Front Microbiol. .

Abstract

Poor health and malnutrition in preschool children are longstanding problems in Bangladesh. Gut microbiota plays a tremendous role in nutrient absorption and determining the state of health. In this study, metagenomic tool was employed to assess the gut microbiota composition of healthy and malnourished children. DNA was extracted from fecal samples of seven healthy and seven malnourished children (n = 14; age 2-3 years) were analyzed for the variable region of 16S rRNA genes by universal primer PCR followed by high-throughput 454 parallel sequencing to identify the bacterial phyla and genera. Our results reveal that the healthy children had a significantly higher number of operational taxonomic unit in their gut than that of the malnourished children (healthy vs. malnourished: 546 vs. 310). In malnourished children, bacterial population of the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes accounted for 46 and 18%, respectively. Conversely, in healthy children, Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes accounted for 5% and 44, respectively (p < 0.001). In malnourished children, the phylum Proteobacteria included pathogenic genera, namely Klebsiella and Escherichia, which were 174-fold and 9-fold higher, respectively, than their healthy counterpart. The predominance of potentially pathogenic Proteobacteria and minimal level of Bacteroidetes as commensal microbiota might be associated to the ill health of malnourished children in Bangladesh.

Keywords: 16S rDNA; children; gut; microbiota; nutrition.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
“Rarefaction Curve” showing differences in the divergence between the gut microbiota of healthy and malnourished children. d, distance cut off value.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Relative abundance (percentage of sequences) of the dominant bacterial phyla in the gut of healthy and malnourished children. Values are expressed as mean ± SE. *Indicates significant difference (p < 0.05) and **(p < 0.001) between two groups of children. Light gray, healthy; dark gray, malnourished children.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Each individual of two groups of children (healthy, H1 ∼ H7; malnourished, M1 ∼ M7) showing relative abundance (percentage of sequences) of the dominant gut bacteria.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Venn diagram showing the distribution of genera belonging to the major phyla between healthy and malnourished children. Bacterial genera with the relative abundance of ≥0.1% were considered for comparison. A total of 39 genera are characteristic of healthy children, 23 genera common between healthy and malnourished children and 14 genera are characteristic of malnourished children.
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