Gut microbiota wellbeing index predicts overall health in a cohort of 1000 infants.

The human gut microbiota is central in regulating all facets of host physiology, and in early life it is thought to influence the host's immune system and metabolism, affecting long-term health. However, longitudinally monitored cohorts with parallel analysis of faecal samples and health data are scarce. In our observational study we describe the gut microbiota development in the first 2 years of life and create a gut microbiota wellbeing index based on the microbiota development and health data in a cohort of nearly 1000 infants using clustering and trajectory modelling.

Sources of gut microbiota variation in a large longitudinal Finnish infant cohort.

Background: Although the infant gut microbiota has been extensively studied, comprehensive assessment on the microbiota determinants including technical variables has not been performed in large infant cohorts.

Methods: We studied the effect of 109 variables on the 16S rRNA gene amplicon-based gut microbiota profiles of infants sampled longitudinally from three weeks to two years of life in the Finnish HELMi birth cohort. Spot faecal samples from both parents were included for intra-family analyses, totalling to 7657 samples from 985 families that were evaluated for beta-diversity patterns using permutational multivariate analysis on Bray-Curtis distances, and differential abundance testing and alpha-diversity for variables of interest.

Quantitative insights into effects of intrapartum antibiotics and birth mode on infant gut microbiota in relation to well-being during the first year of life.

Birth mode and maternal intrapartum (IP) antibiotics affect infants' gut microbiota development, but their relative contribution to absolute bacterial abundances and infant health has not been studied. We compared the effects of Cesarean section (CS) delivery and IP antibiotics on infant gut microbiota development and well-being over the first year. We focused on 92 healthy infants born between gestational weeks 37-42 vaginally without antibiotics (N = 26), with IP penicillin (N = 13) or cephalosporin (N = 7) or by CS with IP cephalosporin (N = 33) or other antibiotics (N = 13).

Dried chicory root improves bowel function, benefits intestinal microbial trophic chains and increases faecal and circulating short chain fatty acids in subjects at risk for type 2 diabetes.

We investigated the impact of dried chicory root in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial with 55 subjects at risk for type 2 diabetes on bowel function, gut microbiota and its products, and glucose homeostasis. The treatment increased stool softness (+1.1 ± 0.

Repeatable ecological dynamics govern the response of experimental communities to antibiotic pulse perturbation.

In an era of pervasive anthropogenic ecological disturbances, there is a pressing need to understand the factors that constitute community response and resilience. A detailed understanding of disturbance response needs to go beyond associations and incorporate features of disturbances, species traits, rapid evolution and dispersal. Multispecies microbial communities that experience antibiotic perturbation represent a key system with important medical dimensions.

Black Queen Evolution and Trophic Interactions Determine Plasmid Survival after the Disruption of the Conjugation Network.

Mobile genetic elements such as conjugative plasmids are responsible for antibiotic resistance phenotypes in many bacterial pathogens. The ability to conjugate, the presence of antibiotics, and ecological interactions all have a notable role in the persistence of plasmids in bacterial populations. Here, we set out to investigate the contribution of these factors when the conjugation network was disturbed by a plasmid-dependent bacteriophage.

Construction and Characterization of Synthetic Bacterial Community for Experimental Ecology and Evolution.

Experimental microbial ecology and evolution have yielded foundational insights into ecological and evolutionary processes using simple microcosm setups and phenotypic assays with one- or two-species model systems. The fields are now increasingly incorporating more complex systems and exploration of the molecular basis of observations. For this purpose, simplified, manageable and well-defined multispecies model systems are required that can be easily investigated using culturing and high-throughput sequencing approaches, bridging the gap between simpler and more complex synthetic or natural systems.