Gut microbiota of healthy Canadian infants: profiles by mode of delivery and infant diet at 4 months

By M. Azad, T. Konya, H. Maughan, David S. Guttman, C. Field, R. Chari, M. Sears, A. Becker, J. Scott, A. Kozyrskyj. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2013

903 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background: The gut microbiota is essential to human health throughout life, yet the acquisition and development of this microbial community during infancy remains poorly understood. Meanwhile, there is increasing concern over rising rates of cesarean delivery and insufficient exclusive breastfeeding of infants in developed countries. In this article, we characterize the gut microbiota of healthy Canadian infants and describe the influence of cesarean delivery and formula feeding. Methods: We included a subset of 24 term infants from the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort. Mode of delivery was obtained from medical records, and mothers were asked to report on infant diet and medication use. Fecal samples were collected at 4 months of age, and we characterized the microbiota composition using high-throughput DNA sequencing. Results: We observed high variability in the profiles of fecal microbiota among the infants. The profiles were generally dominated by Actinobacteria (mainly the genus Bifidobacterium) and Firmicutes (with diverse representation from numerous genera). Compared with breastfed infants, formula-fed infants had increased richness of species, with overrepresentation of Clostridium difficile. Escherichia–Shigella and Bacteroides species were underrepresented in infants born by cesarean delivery. Infants born by elective cesarean delivery had particularly low bacterial richness and diversity. Interpretation: These findings advance our understanding of the gut microbiota in healthy infants. They also provide new evidence for the effects of delivery mode and infant diet as determinants of this essential microbial community in early life.

Subfields: Food Science, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/67b59ea9cf8cfe2f5c1b78595dd43692187dbad8

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Food Science

In Infectious Diseases

In Molecular Biology

Citations in the corpus

What is the Healthy Gut Microbiota Composition? A Changing Ecosystem across Age, Environment, Diet, and Diseases (2019, background): “Escherichia, Shigella, and Bacteroides species are underrepresented in infants born by cesarean delivery [29].”
Maturation of the Infant Microbiome Community Structure and Function Across Multiple Body Sites and in Relation to Mode of Delivery (2017, neutral): “…differences in the infant gut microbiota by virtue of the type of Cesarean delivery performed (emergent versus non-labored/elective), suggesting that the differences associated with Cesarean births may be due to the underlying medical indication, rather than the surgical procedure per se 27 .”
Impact of antibiotics on the human microbiome and consequences for host health (2022, background): “…C. difficile, and Streptococcus and lower abundances of bifidobacteria and Bacteroides with cesarean‐born neonates, whereas Lactobacillus, Prevotella, and Sneathia spp. are associated with vaginally delivered neonates (Azad et al., 2013; Dominguez‐Bello et al., 2010; Penders et al., 2006).”
Early infancy microbial and metabolic alterations affect risk of childhood asthma (2015, background): “Caesarean birth (22), exclusive formula feeding (22), and antibiotic exposure (23) in infancy are also common factors associatedwith gutmicrobial dysbiosis, but only antibiotic exposure in the first year of life was found to be a significant factor in this subpopulation.”
Human gut microbiota/microbiome in health and diseases: a review (2020, background): “However, formulafed infants exhibit an increasing of Clostiridia, Streptococci, Bacteroides and Enterbacteria (Azad et al. 2013; Lee et al. 2015).”
Anti-Inflammatory and Immunomodulatory Effects of Probiotics in Gut Inflammation: A Door to the Body (2021, background): “In addition to CS (34–36) antibiotics (31), breastfeeding (34, 36), and solid food introduction (29), guide the development of gut microbiota.”
Bifidobacteria-mediated immune system imprinting early in life (2020, background): “B. infantis is commonly found in breastfed infants in countries with low incidence of immune mediated disorders, such as Bangladesh (Huda et al., 2014), and Malawi (Grzekowiak et al., 2012), but rare in Europe (Abrahamsson et al., 2014; Avershina et al., 2014; Jost et al., 2012; Roos et al., 2013) a”