Diversity of Bifidobacteria within the Infant Gut Microbiota

By F. Turroni, C. Peano, D. Pass, Elena Foroni, M. Severgnini, Marcus J. Claesson, C. Kerr, J. Hourihane, Deirdre M Murray, F. Fuligni and 7 more. PLoS ONE, 2012

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Background The human gastrointestinal tract (GIT) represents one of the most densely populated microbial ecosystems studied to date. Although this microbial consortium has been recognized to have a crucial impact on human health, its precise composition is still subject to intense investigation. Among the GIT microbiota, bifidobacteria represent an important commensal group, being among the first microbial colonizers of the gut. However, the prevalence and diversity of members of the genus Bifidobacterium in the infant intestinal microbiota has not yet been fully characterized, while some inconsistencies exist in literature regarding the abundance of this genus. Methods/Principal Findings In the current report, we assessed the complexity of the infant intestinal bifidobacterial population by analysis of pyrosequencing data of PCR amplicons derived from two hypervariable regions of the 16 S rRNA gene. Eleven faecal samples were collected from healthy infants of different geographical origins (Italy, Spain or Ireland), feeding type (breast milk or formula) and mode of delivery (vaginal or caesarean delivery), while in four cases, faecal samples of corresponding mothers were also analyzed. Conclusions In contrast to several previously published culture-independent studies, our analysis revealed a predominance of bifidobacteria in the infant gut as well as a profile of co-occurrence of bifidobacterial species in the infant’s intestine.

Subfields: Food Science, Molecular Biology, Nutrition and Dietetics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/097a5f2b6fc6d7adcceb49a3d91490b972e345fd

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Citations in the corpus

Probiotics, gut microbiota, and their influence on host health and disease (2017, background): “Therefore, since bifidobacteria populations are abundant in breast-fed infants, compared with those fed with infant formula, it is generally believed that the presence of bifidobacteria in the microbiota of infants is an indicator of good health [93, 94].”
Gut microbiota of healthy Canadian infants: profiles by mode of delivery and infant diet at 4 months (2013, background): “In the meantime, our subsample of 24 infants is relatively large among studies of infant gut microbiota, many of which have included fewer than 15 infants.(18,22,23,29)”
Bifidobacteria and Butyrate-Producing Colon Bacteria: Importance and Strategies for Their Stimulation in the Human Gut (2016, background): “In general, B. bifidum and B. longum are the dominant species in infants, whereas B. adolescentis and B. longum dominate the adult gut microbiota (Turroni et al., 2012).”
The First Microbial Colonizers of the Human Gut: Composition, Activities, and Health Implications of the Infant Gut Microbiota (2017, background): “Bifidobacterium has been considered to represent the dominant bacterial genus in the breastfed infant gut microbiota (41, 269), but recent studies have also shown a high occurrence of enterobacteria in such an infant population.”