The Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio of the human microbiota changes with age

By D. Mariat, O. Firmesse, F. Levenez, V. Guimaraes, Harry Sokol, J. Doré, G. Corthier, J. Furet. BMC Microbiology, 2009

1,649 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundIn humans, the intestinal microbiota plays an important role in the maintenance of host health by providing energy, nutrients, and immunological protection. Applying current molecular methods is necessary to surmount the limitations of classical culturing techniques in order to obtain an accurate description of the microbiota composition.ResultsHere we report on the comparative assessment of human fecal microbiota from three age-groups: infants, adults and the elderly. We demonstrate that the human intestinal microbiota undergoes maturation from birth to adulthood and is further altered with ageing. The counts of major bacterial groups Clostridium leptum, Clostridium coccoides, Bacteroidetes, Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and Escherichia coli were assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR). By comparing species diversity profiles, we observed age-related changes in the human fecal microbiota. The microbiota of infants was generally characterized by low levels of total bacteria. C. leptum and C. coccoides species were highly represented in the microbiota of infants, while elderly subjects exhibited high levels of E. coli and Bacteroidetes. We observed that the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes evolves during different life stages. For infants, adults and elderly individuals we measured ratios of 0.4, 10.9 and 0.6, respectively.ConclusionIn this work we have confirmed that qPCR is a powerful technique in studying the diverse and complex fecal microbiota. Our work demonstrates that the fecal microbiota composition evolves throughout life, from early childhood to old age.

Subfields: Food Science, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bce46911bc730a808d9013f3460f80d4c3c1041e

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Citations in the corpus

Commensal Clostridia: leading players in the maintenance of gut homeostasis (2013, result): “In the elderly (>65 years), most available studies obtained with molecular methods showed a decrease in the number of strict anaerobes and an increase in the number of facultative anaerobes (streptococci, staphylococci, enterococci, enterobacteriaceae) [44-47].”
Through Ageing, and Beyond: Gut Microbiota and Inflammatory Status in Seniors and Centenarians (2010, background): “years old) and elderly with a wide interval of age, ranging from 60 to 95 years old [14,16,17].”
Teleost microbiomes: the state of the art in their characterization, manipulation and importance in aquaculture and fisheries (2014, result): “Such finding corroborates the observation that during the initial stage of gut colonization, microbiota is highly unstable in humans (Palmer et al., 2007; Mariat et al., 2009; Cho and Blaser, 2012) and mice (El Aidy et al., 2012, 2013).”
Fecal Microbiota and Metabolome of Children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (2013, background): “The composition of the GI microbiota is mainly influenced by genetic factors [21], age [22] and diet [23,24].”
How informative is the mouse for human gut microbiota research? (2015, background): “More recently, Martínez et al. defined a core set of 24 bacterial genera (Martínez et al., 2013) in a longitudinal study of three healthy human individuals during one year, which would constitute a ‘healthy’ core microbiota set.”
Composition and energy harvesting capacity of the gut microbiota: relationship to diet, obesity and time in mouse models (2010, background): “Indeed, it has been suggested that the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio of the human microbiota changes with age.(21) A recent study in mice has shown that a high-fat diet determines the composition of the gut microbiota independent of obesity.”
Age-related changes in gut microbiota composition from newborn to centenarian: a cross-sectional study (2016, background): “However, almost all studies related to the gut microbiota of the elderly have been performed on subjects classified into segmented age groups based on varying definitions of ‘elderly’, such as ‘over 60’ [12], ‘over 65’ [13], ‘over 70’ [14] or ‘centenarian’ [15].”
The chicken gastrointestinal microbiome. (2014, background): “, 2011), and the Firmicutes : Bacteroides ratio may also be important for optimum physiology and nutrition (Mariat et al., 2009; De Filippo et al., 2010; Bervoets et al., 2013).”
Impact of diet in shaping gut microbiota revealed by a comparative study in children from Europe and rural Africa (2010, background): “In western populations, the human intestinal microbiota undergoes maturation from birth to adulthood and aging, with particular emphasis on the F/B ratio, that evolves during different life stages (16).”
Human milk glycobiome and its impact on the infant gastrointestinal microbiota (2010, background): “A prominent bifidobacterial population in the feces of breast-fed infants has been reported from numerous culturebased and non–culture-based studies (58).”