Abstract
Various factors including diet, age, geography, culture and socio-economic status have a role in determining the composition of the human gut microbiota. The human gut microbial composition is known to be altered in disease conditions. Considering the important role of the gut microbiome in maintaining homeostasis and overall health, it is important to understand the microbial diversity and the functional metagenome of the healthy gut. Here, we characterized the microbiota of 31 fecal samples from healthy individuals of Indian ethnic tribes from Ladakh, Jaisalmer and Khargone by shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Sequence analysis revealed that Bifidobacterium and Prevotella were the key microbes contributing to the differences among Jaisalmer, Khargone and Ladakh samples at the genus level. Our correlation network study identified carbohydrate-active enzymes and carbohydrate binding proteins that are associated with specific genera in the different Indian geographical regions studied. Network analysis of carbohydrate-active enzymes and genus abundance revealed that the presence of different carbohydrate-active enzymes is driven by differential abundance of genera. The correlation networks were different in the different geographical regions, and these interactions suggest the role of less abundant genera in shaping the gut environment. We compared our data with samples from different countries and found significant differences in taxonomic composition and abundance of carbohydrate-active enzymes in the gut microbiota as compared to the other countries.
Highlights
GH109, GT2, CBM67, PL12, dockerin and PL11 are present in both France and USA. This suggests why there were no clear demarcations in the Partial Least Squares discriminant analysis (PLSDA) plot as there are more shared carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) between different countries. These results imply that no unique CAZymes are present in the human gut of different countries but that their abundance is significantly different among different countries
Our characterization of the fecal microbiota of healthy adult subjects of Indian ethnic tribes from Ladakh, Jaisalmer and Khargone presents a suite of unique features that suggest specific adaptation to a foraging lifestyle, with key genera Prevotella and Bifidobacterium contributing to the different taxonomic composition in these regions
The taxonomic composition of the fecal microbiota from Indian subjects is distinct as compared to subjects from other countries, with genera Lactobacillus, Prevotella, and Bifidobacterium, being more abundant, and Bacteroides being less abundant in Indian subjects and with variations in other genera of lower abundance
Summary
Our aim was to study the taxonomic composition and diversity of CAZymes in healthy subjects and identify the key microbes that contribute to varying taxonomic composition and CAZyme diversity among healthy subjects from different geographies and diets, both within and without India
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