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. 2020 Nov 9;6(4):273.
doi: 10.3390/jof6040273.

Preterm Infants Harbour a Rapidly Changing Mycobiota That Includes Candida Pathobionts

Stephen A James  1 , Sarah Phillips  1 , Andrea Telatin  1 , David Baker  1 , Rebecca Ansorge  1 , Paul Clarke  2   3 , Lindsay J Hall  1   4 , Simon R Carding  1   3
Affiliations

Preterm Infants Harbour a Rapidly Changing Mycobiota That Includes Candida Pathobionts

Stephen A James et al. J Fungi (Basel). .

Abstract

Fungi and the mycobiome are a fundamental part of the human microbiome that contributes to human health and development. Despite this, relatively little is known about the mycobiome of the preterm infant gut. Here, we have characterised faecal fungal communities present in 11 premature infants born with differing degrees of prematurity and mapped how the mycobiome develops during early infancy. Using an ITS1 sequencing-based approach, the preterm infant gut mycobiome was found to be often dominated by a single species, typically a yeast. Candida was the most abundant genus, with the pathobionts C.albicans and C.parapsilosis highly prevalent and persistent in these infants. Gestational maturity at birth affected the distribution and abundance of these Candida, with hospital-associated C.parapsilosis more prevalent and abundant in infants born at less than 31 weeks. Fungal diversity was lowest at 6 months, but increased with age and change of diet, with food-associated Saccharomycescerevisiae most abundant in infants post weaning. This study provides a first insight into the fungal communities present within the preterm infant gut, identifying distinctive features including the prominence of pathobiont species, and the influence age and environmental factors play in shaping the development of the mycobiome.

Keywords: Candida parapsilosis; GI tract; early life; fungi; mycobiome; pathobiont; preterm infant; yeast.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Bar charts of the relatively most abundant fungal taxa in the preterm infant gut at (a) phylum level and (b) genus level.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Bubble plot depicting the prevalence and relative abundance of opportunistic pathogenic Candida species in the preterm infant gut mycobiome (Calb, C. albicans; Cmeta, C. metapsilosis; Cpara, C. parapsilosis; Ctrop, C. tropicalis).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Bar graph of the prevalence and abundance of human-associated Candida species in the preterm infant gut mycobiome. Samples ordered according to infant gestational age at birth.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Fungal alpha-diversity depicted by a box-and-whisker plot showing number of taxa detected in each faecal sample for infants with 3 longitudinal samples. The horizontal line represents the median marker and ‘×’ represents the mean marker.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Bar chart depicting the prevalence and abundance of D. hansenii and S. cerevisiae in the preterm infant gut at between 6- and 18-months of age.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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