Malnourishment affects gene expression along the length of the small intestine.

Malnourishment is a risk factor for childhood mortality, jeopardizing the health of children by aggravating pneumonia/acute respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases. Malnourishment causes morphophysiological changes resulting in stunting and wasting that have long-lasting consequences such as cognitive deficit and metabolic dysfunction. Using a pig model of malnutrition, the interplay between the phenotypic data displayed by the malnourished animals, the gene expression pattern along the intestinal tract, microbiota composition of the intestinal contents, and hepatic metabolite concentrations from the same animals were correlated using a multi-omics approach.