Metagenomic analysis of the gut microbiome composition associated with vitamin D supplementation in Taiwanese infants

Wei-Te Lei,Chia-Hung Chen,Jhih-Hua Jhong,Kai-Yao Huang,Shun-Long Weng

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-82584-8

Abstract

Early childhood is a critical stage for the foundation and development of the gut microbiome, large amounts of essential nutrients are required such as vitamin D. Vitamin D plays an important role in regulating calcium homeostasis, and deficiency can impair bone mineralization. In addition, most people know that breastfeeding is advocated to be the best thing for a newborn; however, exclusively breastfeeding infants are not easily able to absorb an adequate amount of vitamin D from breast milk. Understanding the effects of vitamin D supplementation on gut microbiome can improve the knowledge of infant health and development. A total of 62 fecal sample from healthy infants were collected in Taiwan. Of the 62 infants, 31 were exclusively breastfed infants and 31 were mixed- or formula-fed infants. For each feeding type, one subgroup of infants received 400 IU of vitamin D per day, and the remaining infants received a placebo. In total, there are 15 breastfed and 20 formula-fed infants with additional vitamin D supplementation, and 16 breastfed and 11 formula-fed infants belong to control group, respectively. We performed a comparative metagenomic analysis to investigate the distribution and diversity of infant gut microbiota among different types of feeding regimes with and without vitamin D supplementation. Our results reveal that the characteristics of infant gut microbiota not only depend on the feeding types but also on nutrients intake, and demonstrated that the vitamin D plays an important role in modulating the infant gut microbiota, especially increase the proportion of probiotics in breast-fed infants.

Highlights

Vitamin D has aroused great interest based on the recognition that vitamin D deficiency can impair bone mineralization, especially in high-risk groups, including infants, children, pregnant women and lactating mothers, or elderly[1,2,3,4,5]
We observed that the gut microbiota normally exists in a stable state when vitamin D sufficient, most of genes are known to involve in catabolism and anabolism pathways
The objective of this study was to investigate that the influence of vitamin D supplementation on gut microbiota in breast- and formula-fed infants during the early months of a newborn’s life

Summary

Introduction

Vitamin D has aroused great interest based on the recognition that vitamin D deficiency can impair bone mineralization, especially in high-risk groups, including infants, children, pregnant women and lactating mothers, or elderly[1,2,3,4,5]. It can lead to a lack of calcium absorption and affect phosphorus m etabolism[20], which increase the risk of cancer development, including multiple myeloma, prostate cancer and ovarian cancer[21] It associated with immune system diseases, metabolic syndrome[22], and even complications of p regnancy[19]. A previous study found that vitamin D involved in modulation of innate immunity by regulating the antimicrobial peptides (AMP)[50], and it has been demonstrated that the relative composition of the intestinal microbiota of mouse was influenced by the level of AMP e xpression[51]. We performed a comparative metagenomic analysis of fecal samples to investigate the distribution and diversity of infant gut microbiota among different types of feeding regimes with and without vitamin D supplementation

Objectives

Results

Conclusion