Aberrant structures of fecal bacterial community in allergic infants profiled by 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing

Abstract

We investigated the correlation between fecal bacteria composition in early infancy and the prevalence of allergic diseases in late infancy. The fecal microbiota in the first 2months was profiled using the 16S rRNA V6 short-tag sequences in the community and statistically compared between two groups of subjects who did and did not show allergic symptoms in the first 2years (n=11 vs. 11). In the allergic group, genus Bacteroides at 1month and genera Propionibacterium and Klebsiella at 2months were more abundant, and genera Acinetobacter and Clostridium at 1month were less abundant than in the nonallergic group. Allergic infants who showed high colonization of Bacteroides and/or Klebsiella showed less colonization of Clostridium perfringens/butyricum, suggesting antagonism between these bacterial groups in the gastrointestinal tract. It was also remarkable that the relative abundance of total Proteobacteria, excluding genus Klebsiella, was significantly lower in the allergic than in the nonallergic group at the age of 1month. These results indicate that pyrosequence-based 16S rRNA gene profiling is valid to find the intestinal microbiotal disorder that correlates with allergy development in later life.