Family SES Is Associated with the Gut Microbiome in Infants and Children

While early life exposures such as mode of birth, breastfeeding, and antibiotic use are established regulators of microbiome composition in early childhood, recent research suggests that the social environment may also exert influence. Two recent studies in adults demonstrated associations between s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Microorganisms (Basel) 2021-07, Vol.9 (8), p.1608
Main Authors: Lewis, Candace R, Bonham, Kevin S, McCann, Shelley Hoeft, Volpe, Alexandra R, D'Sa, Viren, Naymik, Marcus, De Both, Matt D, Huentelman, Matthew J, Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn, Highlander, Sarah K, Deoni, Sean C L, Klepac-Ceraj, Vanja
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antibiotics
Breast feeding
childhood
Children
Composition
Education
Environmental factors
Families & family life
Gene sequencing
Genetics
Genome-wide association studies
Genomes
infant
Infants
Influence
Intestinal microflora
microbiome
Microbiomes
Microbiota
Secondary schools
Social environment
Social factors
Socioeconomic data
Socioeconomic factors
socioeconomic status
Socioeconomics
stress
Taxonomy
Variables
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Summary:While early life exposures such as mode of birth, breastfeeding, and antibiotic use are established regulators of microbiome composition in early childhood, recent research suggests that the social environment may also exert influence. Two recent studies in adults demonstrated associations between socioeconomic factors and microbiome composition. This study expands on this prior work by examining the association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and host genetics with microbiome composition in infants and children. Family SES was used to predict a latent variable representing six genera abundances generated from whole-genome shotgun sequencing. A polygenic score derived from a microbiome genome-wide association study was included to control for potential genetic associations. Associations between family SES and microbiome diversity were assessed. , , , , and spp. significantly loaded onto a latent factor, which was significantly predicted by SES ( < 0.05) but not the polygenic score ( > 0.05). Our results indicate that SES did not predict alpha diversity but did predict beta diversity ( < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that modifiable environmental factors influence gut microbiome composition at an early age. These results are important as our understanding of gut microbiome influences on health continue to expand.
ISSN:2076-2607
2076-2607
DOI:10.3390/microorganisms9081608