Abstract
ABSTRACTBackgroundNeonatal gastrointestinal (GI) bacterial community structure may be related to bacterial communities of the mother, including those of her milk. However, very little is known about the diversity in and relationships among complex bacterial communities in mother-infant dyads.ObjectiveOur primary objective was to assess whether microbiomes of milk are associated with those of oral and fecal samples of healthy lactating women and their infants.MethodsSamples were collected 9 times from day 2 to 6 mo postpartum from 21 healthy lactating women and their infants. Milk was collected via complete breast expression, oral samples via swabs, and fecal samples from tissue (mothers) and diapers (infants). Microbiomes were characterized using high-throughput sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene. Alpha and beta diversity indices were used to compare microbiomes across time and sample types. Membership and composition of microbiomes were analyzed using nonmetric multidimensional scaling and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). The contribution of various bacterial communities of the mother-infant dyad to both milk and infant fecal bacterial communities were estimated using SourceTracker2.ResultsBacterial community structures were relatively unique to each sample type. The most abundant genus in milk and maternal and infant oral samples was Streptococcus (47.1% ± 2.3%, 53.9% ± 1.3%, and 69.1% ± 1.8%, respectively), whereas Bacteroides were predominant in maternal and infant fecal microbiomes (22.9% ± 1.3% and 21.4% ± 2.4%, respectively). The milk microbiome was more similar to the infant oral microbiome than the infant fecal microbiome. However, CCA suggested strong associations between the complex microbial communities of milk and those of all other sample types collected.ConclusionsThese findings suggest complex microbial interactions between breastfeeding mothers and their infants and support the hypothesis that variation in the milk microbiome may influence the infant GI microbiome.
Highlights
High-throughput sequencing has unveiled distinct and complex consortia of microbial communities in and on the human body (e.g., 1–4), and their compositions are associated with health and disease states [5]
Subject description and sample disposition Information related to basic anthropometrics and reproductive history for all subjects at enrollment is listed in Table 1 and has been described previously [30]
Most samples were collected from both mother and infant at each time point, but we were unable to obtain all samples due to subject unavailability, subject noncompliance, or mishandling of the sample by study personnel
Summary
High-throughput sequencing has unveiled distinct and complex consortia of microbial communities in and on the human body (e.g., 1–4), and their compositions are associated with health and disease states [5]. As a mother and her breastfed infant form a unique epi-holobiont [6], their microbiomes likely interact to influence maternal and infant health [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] Understanding how these microbiomes are structured, maintained, and relate to each other is important. Objective: Our primary objective was to assess whether microbiomes of milk are associated with those of oral and fecal samples of healthy lactating women and their infants. CCA suggested strong associations between the complex microbial communities of milk and those of all other sample types collected.
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