Strain-Level Analysis of Mother-to-Child Bacterial Transmission during the First Few Months of Life.

Cell Host Microbe
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Bacterial community acquisition in the infant gut impacts immune education and disease susceptibility. We compared bacterial strains across and within families in a prospective birth cohort of 44 infants and their mothers, sampled longitudinally in the first months of each child's life. We identified mother-to-child bacterial transmission events and describe the incidence of family-specific antibiotic resistance genes. We observed two inheritance patterns across multiple species, where often the mother's dominant strain is transmitted to the child, but occasionally her secondary strains colonize the infant gut. In families where the secondary strain of B. uniformis was inherited, a starch utilization gene cluster that was absent in the mother's dominant strain was identified in the child, suggesting the selective advantage of a mother's secondary strain in the infant gut. Our findings reveal mother-to-child bacterial transmission events at high resolution and give insights into early colonization of the infant gut.

Year of Publication
2018
Journal
Cell Host Microbe
Volume
24
Issue
1
Pages
146-154.e4
Date Published
2018 07 11
ISSN
1934-6069
DOI
10.1016/j.chom.2018.06.007
PubMed ID
30001517
PubMed Central ID
PMC6091882
Links
Grant list
DP3 DK094338 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
P30 DK043351 / DK / NIDDK NIH HHS / United States
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