The maternal microbiota drives early postnatal innate immune development

By Mercedes Gomez de Agüero, S. Ganal-Vonarburg, Tobias Fuhrer, Sandra Rupp, Y. Uchimura, Hai Li, A. Steinert, M. Heikenwalder, S. Hapfelmeier, U. Sauer and 2 more. Science, 2016

1,085 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mom's bugs shape of spring immunity In utero, babies are relatively microbe-free but are quickly colonized at birth. These early microbial residents help to shape our immune systems. Gomez de Agüero et al. wondered whether the maternal microbiome also affects the of springs' immune system during gestation. To do this, they transiently colonized otherwise microbe-free pregnant mice. Compared to those born to microbe-free moms, pups born to colonized moms had increased numbers of certain innate immune cells and different patterns of gene expression in their guts. Science, this issue p. 1296 In gestating mice, the mother’s community of microbes shapes the immune system of the offspring. Postnatal colonization of the body with microbes is assumed to be the main stimulus to postnatal immune development. By transiently colonizing pregnant female mice, we show that the maternal microbiota shapes the immune system of the offspring. Gestational colonization increases intestinal group 3 innate lymphoid cells and F4/80+CD11c+ mononuclear cells in the pups. Maternal colonization reprograms intestinal transcriptional profiles of the offspring, including increased expression of genes encoding epithelial antibacterial peptides and metabolism of microbial molecules. Some of these effects are dependent on maternal antibodies that potentially retain microbial molecules and transmit them to the offspring during pregnancy and in milk. Pups born to mothers transiently colonized in pregnancy are better able to avoid inflammatory responses to microbial molecules and penetration of intestinal microbes.

Subfields: Emergency Medical Services, Immunology, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fcc31fc4c9374ab86f8de7ab971239c9fbe93f97

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Citations in the corpus

The Human Microbiome and Child Growth - First 1000 Days and Beyond. (2019, background): “Transient colonization of germ-free mice during pregnancy primes innate immune maturity in their germ-free offspring, resulting in better protection against infection [30].”
The Central Nervous System and the Gut Microbiome (2016, background): “Gomez de Agüero et al. (2016) elegantly demonstrated that microbial metabolites produced in the maternal gut during transient colonization of otherwise GF mice with an auxotrophic strain of Escherichia coli can reach the fetal compartment and induce a specific developmental program prenatally.”
Interaction between microbiota and immunity in health and disease (2020, background): “Gestational maternal colonization increases intestinal group 3 innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s) and F4/80CD11c mononuclear cells in the offspring.(26) The lamina propria of the small intestine contains a large number of IL-17CD4 T (Th17) cells, which represent a class of potent immunomodulatory effecto”
Wild Mouse Gut Microbiota Promotes Host Fitness and Improves Disease Resistance (2017, positive): “This approach allowed vertical microbiome transfer to newborn pups enabling microbiota-mediated effects on the pups’ immune systems before and after birth (Gensollen et al., 2016; Gomez de Agüero et al., 2016).”
A critical assessment of the “sterile womb” and “in utero colonization” hypotheses: implications for research on the pioneer infant microbiome (2017, background): “Indeed, a recent study elegantly showed that microbial metabolites in the fetal environment can have a major impact on the development of the offspring [142].”
Mining the human gut microbiota for immunomodulatory organisms (2017, neutral): “There was also an enrichment in transcripts reported to be affected in infant mice secondary to maternal colonization (Gomez de Agüero et al., 2016).”
SCFA: mechanisms and functional importance in the gut (2020, background): “(GPCR)-dependent signalling, (2) histone and transcription factor acetylation by SCFA and (3) role of butyrate”
Homeostatic immunity and the microbiota (2017, positive): “Commensal-catabolized indole-derivatives from gestationallycolonized mothers promoted increased ILC3 and mononuclear phagocyte frequencies in their offspring (Gomez de Aguero et al., 2016).”