TY - JOUR

T1 - Maternal gut microbiota during pregnancy and the composition of immune cells in infancy

AU - Gao, Yuan

AU - O'Hely, Martin

AU - Quinn, Thomas P.

AU - Ponsonby, Anne-Louise

AU - Harrison, Leonard C.

AU - Frøkiær, Hanne

AU - Tang, Mimi L. K.

AU - Brix, Susanne

AU - Kristiansen, Karsten

AU - Burgner, Dave

AU - Saffery, Richard

AU - Ranganathan, Sarath

AU - Collier, Fiona

AU - Vuillermin, Peter

AU - BIS Investigator Grp

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - BackgroundPreclinical studies have shown that maternal gut microbiota during pregnancy play a key role in prenatal immune development but the relevance of these findings to humans is unknown. The aim of this prebirth cohort study was to investigate the association between the maternal gut microbiota in pregnancy and the composition of the infant's cord and peripheral blood immune cells over the first year of life. MethodsThe Barwon Infant Study cohort (n=1074 infants) was recruited using an unselected sampling frame. Maternal fecal samples were collected at 36 weeks of pregnancy and flow cytometry was conducted on cord/peripheral blood collected at birth, 6 and 12 months of age. Among a randomly selected sub-cohort with available samples (n=293), maternal gut microbiota was characterized by sequencing the 16S rRNA V4 region. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were clustered based on their abundance. Associations between maternal fecal microbiota clusters and infant granulocyte, monocyte and lymphocyte subsets were explored using compositional data analysis. Partial least squares (PLS) and regression models were used to investigate the relationships/associations between environmental, maternal and infant factors, and OTU clusters. ResultsWe identified six clusters of co-occurring OTUs. The first two components in the PLS regression explained 39% and 33% of the covariance between the maternal prenatal OTU clusters and immune cell populations in offspring at birth. A cluster in which Dialister, Escherichia, and Ruminococcus were predominant was associated with a lower proportion of granulocytes (p=0.002), and higher proportions of both central naive CD4(+) T cells (CD4(+)/CD45RA(+)/CD31(-)) (p

AB - BackgroundPreclinical studies have shown that maternal gut microbiota during pregnancy play a key role in prenatal immune development but the relevance of these findings to humans is unknown. The aim of this prebirth cohort study was to investigate the association between the maternal gut microbiota in pregnancy and the composition of the infant's cord and peripheral blood immune cells over the first year of life. MethodsThe Barwon Infant Study cohort (n=1074 infants) was recruited using an unselected sampling frame. Maternal fecal samples were collected at 36 weeks of pregnancy and flow cytometry was conducted on cord/peripheral blood collected at birth, 6 and 12 months of age. Among a randomly selected sub-cohort with available samples (n=293), maternal gut microbiota was characterized by sequencing the 16S rRNA V4 region. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were clustered based on their abundance. Associations between maternal fecal microbiota clusters and infant granulocyte, monocyte and lymphocyte subsets were explored using compositional data analysis. Partial least squares (PLS) and regression models were used to investigate the relationships/associations between environmental, maternal and infant factors, and OTU clusters. ResultsWe identified six clusters of co-occurring OTUs. The first two components in the PLS regression explained 39% and 33% of the covariance between the maternal prenatal OTU clusters and immune cell populations in offspring at birth. A cluster in which Dialister, Escherichia, and Ruminococcus were predominant was associated with a lower proportion of granulocytes (p=0.002), and higher proportions of both central naive CD4(+) T cells (CD4(+)/CD45RA(+)/CD31(-)) (p

KW - birth cohort

KW - gut microbiota

KW - maternal microbiota

KW - fetal immunity

KW - neonatal T cells

KW - T-CELLS

KW - ALLERGY

U2 - 10.3389/fimmu.2022.986340

DO - 10.3389/fimmu.2022.986340

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36211431

VL - 13

JO - Frontiers in Immunology

JF - Frontiers in Immunology

SN - 1664-3224

M1 - 986340

ER -