Comparative analysis of gut microbiota of breast‐ and formula‐fed Korean infants by using pyrosequencing (1017.4)

Abstract

Infant feeding is one of the significant determinants of the intestinal microbiota in early life. Although numerous researches have performed to investigate the bacteria community in the infant gut, culture‐based methods had showed limited bacteria population. Recently, pyrosequencing, a new high throughtput DNA sequencing technique, has been introduced and applied to explore microbiome. The purpose of this study was to compare the compositions of the fecal microbiota of Korean infants fed breast milk to those of infants fed milk formula. We examined microbial communities in fecal samples collected from 20 Korean infants at 4 weeks of age using pyrosequencing. Diversity analysis of total microbiota sequences revealed that a more diverse collection in milk formula‐fed infants (MFI), whereas, the probiotics, including S. salivarius, L. gasseri, and B. longum were abundant in the microbiota of breast milk‐fed infants (BFI). Moreover, Bifidobacteriaceae were significantly abundant in BFI compared with those of FFI. Our study is the first attempt to analyze gut microbiota in Korean infants by using pyrosequencing, which may provide valuable information to future study of the role of intestinal microbiota affecting in adulthood.Grant Funding Source: Ewha Womans University Research Grant of 2013.