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. 2019 Jan 14;19(1):53.
doi: 10.1186/s12879-019-3674-3.

Viral species richness and composition in young children with loose or watery stool in Ethiopia

Kristen Aiemjoy  1   2 , Eda Altan  3   4 , Solomon Aragie  5 , Dionna M Fry  6 , Tung G Phan  3   4 , Xutao Deng  3   4 , Melsew Chanyalew  5 , Zerihun Tadesse  7 , E Kelly Callahan  8 , Eric Delwart  3   4 , Jeremy D Keenan  6   9
Affiliations

Viral species richness and composition in young children with loose or watery stool in Ethiopia

Kristen Aiemjoy et al. BMC Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Stool consistency is an important diagnostic criterion in both research and clinical medicine and is often used to define diarrheal disease.

Methods: We examine the pediatric enteric virome across stool consistencies to evaluate differences in richness and community composition using fecal samples collected from children aged 0 to 5 years participating in a clinical trial in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. The consistency of each sample was graded according to the modified Bristol Stool Form Scale for children (mBSFS-C) before a portion of stool was preserved for viral metagenomic analysis. Stool samples were grouped into 29 pools according to stool consistency type. Differential abundance was determined using negative-binomial modeling.

Results: Of 446 censused children who were eligible to participate, 317 presented for the study visit examination and 269 provided stool samples. The median age of children with stool samples was 36 months. Species richness was highest in watery-consistency stool and decreased as stool consistency became firmer (Spearman's r = - 0.45, p = 0.013). The greatest differential abundance comparing loose or watery to formed stool was for norovirus GII (7.64, 95% CI 5.8, 9.5) followed by aichivirus A (5.93, 95% CI 4.0, 7.89) and adeno-associated virus 2 (5.81, 95%CI 3.9, 7.7).

Conclusions: In conclusion, we documented a difference in pediatric enteric viromes according to mBSFS-C stool consistency category, both in species richness and composition.

Keywords: Diarrheal disease; Norwalk virus; Viral infection; Virome.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical committees at the University of California (San Francisco, CA, USA); Emory University (Atlanta, GA, USA); The Food, Medicine and Health Care Administration and Control Authority of Ethiopia; and the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology granted approval for this study. We obtained verbal informed consent in Amharic from all caregivers. The procedures for verbal consent were approved by all ethical committees.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The modified Bristol Stool Form Scale for Children (mBSFS-C), translated into Amharic
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Prevalence of species/genotypes by mBSFS-C stool consistency category
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Viral abundance by mBSFS-C stool consistency category
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Differential abundance: Loose/watery stool compared to formed stool
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Species richness according to mBSFS-C stool consistency category
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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