Discordant transmission of bacteria and viruses from mothers to babies at birth

Rabia Maqsood,Barbara B Warner,Phillip I Tarr,Rachel Rodgers,Lori R Holtz,Scott A Handley,I Malick Ndao,Efrem S Lim,Cynthia Rodriguez

doi:10.1186/s40168-019-0766-7

Rabia Maqsood, Barbara B Warner + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-019-0766-7

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Abstract

BackgroundThe earliest microbial colonizers of the human gut can have life-long consequences for their hosts. Precisely how the neonatal gut bacterial microbiome and virome are initially populated is not well understood. To better understand how the maternal gut microbiome influences acquisition of the infant gut microbiome, we studied the early life bacterial microbiomes and viromes of 28 infant twin pairs and their mothers.ResultsInfant bacterial and viral communities more closely resemble those of their related co-twin than unrelated infants. We found that 63% of an infant’s bacterial microbiome can be traced to their mother’s gut microbiota. In contrast, only 15% of their viral communities are acquired from their mother. Delivery route did not determine how much of the bacterial microbiome or virome was shared from mother to infant. However, bacteria-bacteriophage interactions were altered by delivery route.ConclusionsThe maternal gut microbiome significantly influences infant gut microbiome acquisition. Vertical transmission of the bacterial microbiome is substantially higher compared to vertical transmission of the virome. However, the degree of similarity between the maternal and infant gut bacterial microbiome and virome did not vary by delivery route. The greater similarity of the bacterial microbiome and virome between twin pairs than unrelated twins may reflect a shared environmental exposure. Thus, differences of the inter-generation transmissibility at birth between the major kingdoms of microbes indicate that the foundation of these microbial communities are shaped by different rules.3nSue88y6BfvksFidvuVsSVideo

Highlights

The earliest microbial colonizers of the human gut can have life-long consequences for their hosts
To determine if other factors might be associated with specific microbial communities, we performed a multivariate analyses and random forest classification; both methods demonstrate that mothers and infants have significant differences between their bacterial microbiome (Additional file 1: Figure S1B–E)
While we found bacterial communities differed significantly between infants born vaginally versus those born by C-section, we were unable to find discriminating amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) for delivery route

Summary

Introduction

The earliest microbial colonizers of the human gut can have life-long consequences for their hosts. The gut undergoes a profound ecological transition as the infant leaves the near sterile or sterile womb and becomes home to diverse microbial populations. Histological evidence [5] and sequencing data [6, 7] suggest that the infant might encounter microbes in the During the first days of life, portions of the infant gut microbiome can be traced to multiple maternal sources including the vaginal, skin, oral, and gut microbiomes. Of these sources, colonization by bacteria that are found in the mothers’ gut is the predominant driver of long-term persistence [16]. Seeding by vertically transmitted bacteria (such as Bifidobacterium, Ruminococcus, Coprococcus species) causes transcriptionally active colonization in the infant gut [13]

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