Abstract
The human gut microbiome develops during the first years of life, followed by a relatively stable adult microbiome. Day care attendance is a drastic change that exposes children to a large group of peers in a diverse environment for prolonged periods, at this critical time of microbial development, and therefore has the potential to affect microbial composition. We characterize the effect of day care on the gut microbial development throughout a single school year in 61 children from 4 different day care facilities, and in additional 24 age-matched home care children (n = 268 samples, median age of entering the study was 12 months). We show that day care attendance is a significant and impactful factor in shaping the microbial composition of the growing child, the specific daycare facility and class influence the gut microbiome, and each child becomes more similar to others in their day care. Furthermore, in comparison to home care children, day care children have a different gut microbial composition, with enrichment of taxa more frequently observed in older populations. Our results provide evidence that daycare may be an external factor that contributes to gut microbiome maturation and make-up in early childhood.
Highlights
In sample 4 and 5 both day care class and day care facility contribution were similar to that of age (9–13%), and being in home care or day care contributed 3–4% of the microbial variance. These results indicate that the specific day care class is an impactful factor in child microbial compositional makeup
Day care children have a different microbial composition than home care children with enrichment of taxa more frequently seen in older populations
The longitudinal nature of our cohort allowed us to characterize the dynamics of the microbial composition in early child hood, taking into account day care as a small ecosystem
Summary
Childhood is an important period where different interventions can affect behavioral and biological factors, supporting a child’s growth. Childhood is a pivotal time for the development of the gut microbial composition and the host immune system. During this time, the gut microbial composition displays the highest intra- and inter-individual variability[1–3]. In germ-free animals, in the absence of the microbiota, there is a deleterious effect on the immune system[6] and on brain development[7]. Behavioral and cognitive developments take place parallel to microbial maturation in the first years of life. Previous studies have demonstrated a short-term beneficial impact of preschool participation on early cognitive skills[8], and some longterm effects on health, educational attainment, and earnings[9–11]
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