Maternal inheritance of bifidobacterial communities and bifidophages in infants through vertical transmission

Sabrina Duranti,Tiziana Crifò,Caterina Masè,Saverio Tateo,Rosanna Clementi,Rosarita Canto,Giuseppina Cusumano,Kieran James,Marta Mangifesta,Sabina Fedi,Moreno Zolfo,Stefania Gottardi,Daniela Postai,Massimo Soffiati,Anna Pedrotti,Gabriele Andrea Lugli,Francesca Turroni,Nicola Segata,Daniela Savoi,Rosaria Anzalone,Federica Armanini,Douwe Van Sinderen,Claudia Innamorati,Edoardo Pasolli,Pamela Ferretti,Marina Cologna,Leonardo Mancabelli,Ilaria Bariletti,Christian Milani,Alice Viappiani,Chiara Ferrario,Valentina Gorfer,Marco Ventura

doi:10.1186/s40168-017-0282-6

Abstract

BackgroundThe correct establishment of the human gut microbiota represents a crucial development that commences at birth. Different hypotheses propose that the infant gut microbiota is derived from, among other sources, the mother’s fecal/vaginal microbiota and human milk.ResultsThe composition of bifidobacterial communities of 25 mother-infant pairs was investigated based on an internal transcribed spacer (ITS) approach, combined with cultivation-mediated and genomic analyses. We identified bifidobacterial strains/communities that are shared between mothers and their corresponding newborns. Notably, genomic analyses together with growth profiling assays revealed that bifidobacterial strains that had been isolated from human milk are genetically adapted to utilize human milk glycans. In addition, we identified particular bacteriophages specific of bifidobacterial species that are common in the viromes of mother and corresponding child.ConclusionsThis study highlights the transmission of bifidobacterial communities from the mother to her child and implies human milk as a potential vehicle to facilitate this acquisition. Furthermore, these data represent the first example of maternal inheritance of bifidobacterial phages, also known as bifidophages in infants following a vertical transmission route.

Highlights

The correct establishment of the human gut microbiota represents a crucial development that commences at birth
Evaluation of the bifidobacterial composition of the gut microbiota of infants To characterize the bifidobacterial population in the infant gut, we employed a recently developed pipeline based on sequencing of a hypervariable internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, here referred to as ITS profiling [26]
ITS profiling of these 50 samples produced a total of 1,703,642 reads, ranging from 1224 to 113,414 reads per sample (Additional file 1: Table S1), which were grouped into clusters of identical sequences (OTUs or operational taxonomic units) and taxonomically classified

Summary

Introduction

The correct establishment of the human gut microbiota represents a crucial development that commences at birth. The period immediately following birth is believed to be crucial for the correct establishment of the gut microbiota with possible temporary and long-lasting effects on host health [1]. During this infant stage of (human) life, microorganisms originating from the mother and from environmental microbial communities rapidly colonize. Several studies have highlighted the possibility of vertical transmission of (components of ) the gut microbiota from mother to child [12, 15, 18]. The biological relevance of such findings in this latter work is limited due to the small number of mother-infant pairs analysed [11]

Methods

Results

Conclusion